Minimal setup

This is a manual to set up a lightweight and customizable zsh instance for a Unix environment without resorting to oh-my-zsh.

Instructions

  1. Install zsh through your package manager
  2. Set zsh as the default shell for the current user with chsh -s /bin/zsh
  3. Reload the user session and complete the setup for zsh
  4. Install zplug from https://github.com/zplug/zplug
  5. Add an aliases file with touch ~/.zsh_aliases if you’re using the example configuration
  6. Configure zplug in ~/.zshrc
  7. Reload the terminal session
  8. Run zplug install && zplug load --verbose

Tips and Tricks

Example ~/.zshrc configuration with zplug:

HISTSIZE=1000
HISTFILE=~/.histfile
SAVEHIST=1000

source ~/.zplug/init.zsh

zplug "zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions"
zplug "zsh-users/zsh-completions"
zplug "zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting"

zplug "themes/clean", from:oh-my-zsh, as:theme

zplug load

. ~/.zsh_aliases

Resources

  1. Oh My Zsh homepage. Accessed 2024-01-10. https://ohmyz.sh.
  2. Zplug homepage. Accessed 2024-01-10. http://zplug.github.io.
  3. “Zsh.” The Debian Wiki. Accessed 2024-01-09. https://wiki.debian.org/Zsh.