Overviews of how to set up a modern terminal are a dime a dozen, but they are all different. This is my take on it.

Here’s what you will end up with:

  • zsh as your shell
  • starship.rs as your prompt
  • asdf-vm to manage your languages
  • zsh-syntax-highlighting
  • zsh-autosuggestions
  • zsh-autocomplete
  • nerd-fonts Firacode
  • direnv
  • nodejs
  • just for a modern make
  • zoxide for a modern cd
  • bat for a modern cat
  • btop for a modern top
  • lsd for a colorful ls
  • duc for a modern du
  • duf for a modern df

End Result

The completed zshrc and zsh_aliases files can be found at the end of this guide.

A word of warning

This guide is for Debian 12. If you are on a different system, some of the commands might not work.

And more importantly, please don’t just copy and paste the commands. Go visit the websites of the tools (probably GitHub) and read the docs. This is just a starting point. You will have to make these tools work for you in the end.

Time to spice up your terminal! 🌶️ 🍛

Prerequisites

Create a fresh System/Machine/VM with debian12

Goodbye bash, hello zsh!

  1. $ sudo apt update -y
  2. $ sudo apt install git zsh
  3. $ sudo chsh -s $(which zsh) $USER

Now exit and log back in.

When prompted with zsh welcome, choose 0 (zero).

Exit, creating the file ~/.zshrc containing just a comment. That will prevent this function being run again.

Baseline configuration, edit ~/.zshrc:

HISTFILE=~/.histfile
HISTSIZE=1000
SAVEHIST=1000
setopt appendhistory
setopt extendedhistory
setopt hist_ignore_dups
setopt hist_ignore_space
setopt autocd

Nerd-Fonts

$ sudo apt install fonts-firacode

starship.rs

Install with Starship’s interactive script (you need sudo rights):

$ curl -sS https://starship.rs/install.sh | sh

Post-installation, add the following to your .zshrc:

$ echo 'eval "$(starship init zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc

Then reload your shell:

$ source ~/.zshrc

🌟✨💅

Install asdf-vm

$ cd; git clone https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf.git ~/.asdf --branch v0.14.1

Now you need to make asdf-vm available in your shell.

This is what your .zshrc should look like at this point in time:

HISTFILE=~/.histfile
HISTSIZE=1000
SAVEHIST=1000
setopt appendhistory
setopt extendedhistory
setopt hist_ignore_dups
setopt hist_ignore_space
setopt autocd

# append completions to fpath
fpath=(${ASDF_DIR}/completions $fpath)
# initialise completions with ZSH's compinit
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit
eval "$(starship init zsh)"
source "$HOME/.asdf/asdf.sh"

Resource your shell:

$ source ~/.zshrc

https://asdf-vm.com/more/faq.html#shell-not-detecting-newly-installed-shims

Add asdf plugins

Let’s install a language and some more tools

asdf plugin-add nodejs
asdf plugin-add just
asdf plugin-add direnv

Install some versions

asdf install nodejs latest
asdf install just latest
asdf install direnv latest

Set global versions

asdf global nodejs latest
asdf global just latest
asdf global direnv latest

Reshim asdf (to make the versions available in your shell):

asdf reshim
just --version
node --version

enable direnv

Add the following to your .zshrc:

echo 'eval "$(direnv hook zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc

Make zsh work for you

Time for some zsh plugins!

zsh plugin: zsh-syntax-highlighting

This plugin highlights commands as you type them.

$ sudo apt install zsh-syntax-highlighting
$ echo "source /usr/share/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh" >> ${ZDOTDIR:-$HOME}/.zshrc

zsh plugin: zsh-autosuggestions

Uses the history to suggest commands as you type. Navigate through the suggestions with the option/alt plus arrow keys or accept the suggestion with the right arrow key.

We install using git (the deb package did not work for me):

$ git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ~/.zsh/zsh-autosuggestions
$ echo 'source ~/.zsh/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh' >> ~/.zshrc

zsh plugin: zsh-autocomplete

This will automagically show options and help.

$ git clone --depth 1 -- https://github.com/marlonrichert/zsh-autocomplete.git ~/.zsh/zsh-autocomplete;

$ echo "source $HOME/.zsh/zsh-autocomplete/zsh-autocomplete.plugin.zsh" >> ~/.zshrc

Then force reload the current shell:

$ exec zsh

Try typing: cp -r

Install some tools

bat, btop, lsd, duc, duf and tldr

$ sudo apt install -y --no-install-recommends bat btop lsd duc duf tldr

Have a read on duc and duf @ubuntumint.com/du-command-alternatives-linux/

Or just try them out! $ tldr duc and $ tldr duf

zoxide

It sounds scary at first. But once you trust it, you will never go back.

$ curl -sS https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ajeetdsouza/zoxide/main/install.sh | bash
$ echo 'eval "$(zoxide init zsh)"' >> ~/.zshrc

Add zoxide to your PATH:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

No need to enter the full path to a directory anymore. Just type cd <directory> (or z <directory> if you didn’t alias it, though I highly recommend doing so!) and zoxide will take you there.

Config aliases (Overwrite the defaults)

Create a .zsh_aliases file in your home directory:

$ touch ~/.zsh_aliases

Make zsh use a .zsh_aliases file, add this to your .zshrc:

if [-f ~/.zsh_aliases ]; then
  source ~/.zsh_aliases
fi

Add some aliases to ~/.zsh_aliases:

alias cd='z'
alias ls='lsd'
alias bat='batcat' # bat is installed as batcat on debian, to avoid conflicts
alias top='btop'
alias htop='btop' # if you are muscle memory bound to htop
alias du='duc'
alias df='duf'

State of your .zshrc

After all these steps, your .zshrc should look like this:

HISTFILE=~/.histfile
HISTSIZE=1000
SAVEHIST=1000
setopt appendhistory
setopt extendedhistory
setopt hist_ignore_dups
setopt hist_ignore_space
setopt autocd

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

source "$HOME/.asdf/asdf.sh"
source /usr/share/zsh-syntax-highlighting/zsh-syntax-highlighting.zsh
source ~/.zsh/zsh-autosuggestions/zsh-autosuggestions.zsh
source ~/.zsh/zsh-autocomplete/zsh-autocomplete.plugin.zsh

eval "$(starship init zsh)"
eval "$(zoxide init zsh)"
eval "$(direnv hook zsh)"

if [ -f ~/.zsh_aliases ]; then
source ~/.zsh_aliases
fi

# append completions to fpath
fpath=(${ASDF_DIR}/completions $fpath)
# initialise completions with ZSH's compinit
autoload -Uz compinit && compinit

And for completeness, your .zsh_aliases:

alias cd="z"
alias ls='lsd'
alias bat='batcat'
alias top='btop'
alias htop='btop' # if you are muscle memory bound to htop
alias du='duc'
alias df='duf'

setopt zsh options

We added setopt autocd to our .zshrc earlier. This is a zsh option. There are many more.

autocd is a zsh option that allows you to go up one directory level with .. instead of cd ...

Conclusion

With this setup, you have a modern shell with a modern prompt, modern tools, and modern plugins. For a developer, this is a good starting point. Now go and browse the docs of the tools you installed and make them work for you!

Better yet, find some tools here on the site that you find interesting and install them.