If you reveal to someone you are using the bash shell in 2023, they are going to assume you have either been living under a rock, or you likely also have a Toyota Corolla ‘66 (…which, BTW, is the best Corolla). All the cool kids now use zsh.

What are we working with?

To look up which shell you are using, a tell-tale sign the prompt. If it has a $, you likely have bash. If you have a %, you likely have zsh. To confirm, do an echo $0 or echo $SHELL.

Modernizing

To get you into the modern age of computing, you need to install the Z-shell. On MacOS, you likely already have zsh but, to get the latest version, run:

brew install zsh

On Debian-based Linux distributions, it’s:

apt update; apt install -y zsh

On RedHat-based Linux distributions, it’s:

yum install -y zsh

Now that you have Z-shell installed, make it your default shell with:

chsh -s $(which zsh)

For the change to take effect, log out and log in.

Doing More

To give your Z-shell super powers, you need “Oh My Zsh”. Run:

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Next, download the syntax highlighting and auto-suggestions plugins with:

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting

…and:

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

…then, add them to the plugins list in the ~/.zshrc file, which should now look like this:

plugins=(
  git
  zsh-syntax-highlighting
  zsh-autosuggestions
)

Finally, activate the changes with:

source ~/.zshrc

Other Notes

Installing HomeBrew

If you do not yet have HomeBrew (the brew command) on MacOS, it’s easily installed with:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

You might also have to install Xcode command line tools with:

xcode-select —-install

Listing the Shells on your System

You can view a list of all available shells in /etc/shells.