Customise shell

Customising the shell is optional, although gives an enhanced experience.

Zsh provides the richest command line experience, providing many advanced features over bash. Oh My Zsh is a community configuration that provides a simple way to configure Zsh features and also supports powerline10k terminal theme, providing context specific information and a more engaging visual experience.

Oh My Zsh community configuration enhances the Zsh experience. Practicalli normally uses Prezto community configuration, unfortunately this did not work well on Termux.

Install Zsh

Install the zsh package using the Termux package manager

pkg install zsh

Start zsh, which will show a % character as the prompt

zsh

Set the shell to run zsh by default

chsh -s zsh

Install Oh My Zsh

Install Oh My Zsh via curl (or wget if preferred) in the .oh-my-zsh/ directory

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Install Powerline10k

Powerline10k is a visually appealing prompt with a setup script to visually choose the presentation of the prompt.

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k

Edit ~/.zshrc and set the theme to ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k"

nano ~/.zshrc

Save the changes exit termux.

Next time zsh is run, powerline10k setup script will run. If Meslo is not set as the terminal font, the setup script offers to install the font. Installing the font will restart Termux (without prompting for a restart).

The powerline10k setup script provides a wizard to configure each part of the prompt.

p10k configure command will manually run the powerline10k setup script.

Prezto Zsh community configuration

NOTE: previous attempts to use Prezto proved to have issues

Clone prezto and its sub-modules into XDG_CONFIG_HOME/zsh which is typically ~/.config/zsh

git clone --recursive https://github.com/sorin-ionescu/prezto.git "${ZDOTDIR:-${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/zsh}/.zprezto"

Set the location of the Zsh configuration home with $ZDOTDIR, relative to the XDG locations

export ZDOTDIR="${ZDOTDIR:=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/zsh}"

Create a new Zsh configuration by copying/linking the Zsh configuration files provided:

setopt EXTENDED_GLOB
for rcfile in "${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}"/.zprezto/runcoms/^README.md(.N); do
  ln -s "$rcfile" "${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.${rcfile:t}"
done

Practicalli Zsh configuration

Clone practicalli/dotfiles and replace the symbolic links in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/zsh with links to the respective Zsh configuration files in the cloned repository (or copy the files if you prefer)

Copy or create a symbolic like for the .p10k configuration or skip this to create your own configuration when next startingzsh.

Edit $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/.config/zsh/.zshenv and add the following lines to enable zsh to find the prezto configuration

export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:=$HOME/.config}"
export ZDOTDIR="${ZDOTDIR:=$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/zsh}"

Create a symbolic link from $HOME/.zshenv to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/.config/zsh/.zshenv (or to the .zshenv file from practicalli/dotfiles)

ln -s $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/.config/zsh/.zshenv $HOME/.zshenv

Check the configuration is working by loading the .zshenv configuration

source "$ZDOTDIR/.zshenv"

Using Oh My Bash

If preferring Bash, then ohmybash provides a nice command line experience, showing completions clearer, nice themes that provide information.