Install zsh with git-bash on windows

Why

Well, you certainlly can run WSL2 on windows 10/11 to get bash and then zsh. But after my testing, I find it quit slow to open up wsl2 and then run zsh, whereas if you run zsh with git-bash, it's almost instantaneous. Plus I don't want to have that extra space occupied by a Linux system, if I want a full Linux experience, I'll install a Linux distro myself.

It does require a bit of workaround, but I think it's worth it.

Installation

1. Terminal emulator: Windows Terminal You should get windows terminal for this first, since bash/zsh will be running on this, it's also the most beautiful and customisable one on windows rightnow. I'm fully aware of the existance of Alacritty, but it's quit difficult to set it up for beginners.

   I prefer to install it with winget: winget install Microsoft.WindowsTerminal

2. Git: Install Git for windows, we'll be using git-bash so this is a must.

   winget install git.git

3. Open git-bash with Windows Terminal: add bash.exe's path to Windows terminal, so you can run git-bash within it.

4. patched fonts: We need a patched font to display fancy glyphs on our prompt, What I usually use is a font called CaskaydiaCove NF. You can download from nerdfronts.com

5. Download zsh: Download zsh package here: https://packages.msys2.org/package/zsh?repo=msys&variant=x86_64

   Extract the download package and paste the content in the directory where git-bash.exe is, it will replace some of the files in that directory. Don't worry, it's all part of the process.

6. bash to zsh: Edit your .bashrc with your text editor of choice (or just copy the following in your bash)

   notepad ~/.bashrc
   

   notepad is the easiest one.

   copy the following to .bashrc

   # Launch Zsh
   if [ -t 1 ]; then
   exec zsh
   fi
   

   After that, save and close. Reopen bash, you should be able to automatically open zsh. You can type in:

   zsh --version

   You should be getting zsh 5.8(x86_64-pc-msys) as a result.

7. Install oh-my-zsh: Now comes to the fancy part, oh-my-zsh

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

   use the following if you live in mainland China:

   REMOTE=https://gitee.com/mirrors/oh-my-zsh.git sh -c "$(wget https://gitee.com/mirrors/oh-my-zsh/raw/master/tools/install.sh -O -)"
   

8. More plugins: To make zsh more functional, let's install two essential plugins: zsh-autosuggestions, zsh-syntaxhighlighting

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

   Then edit your .zshrc with:

   notepad ~.zshrc
   

   find the line where "plugins=" is, write the following:

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

   You can add more plugins later, just keep in mind the more plugins you add in, the slower zsh will get.

9. Theme: oh-my-zsh comes with a lot of themes built-in, but my favorite one (and the most popular one) is called powerlevel10k, it's fast and very much polished. Here's how to install it:

   git clone --depth=1 https://gitee.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ~/powerlevel10k
   echo 'source ~/powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k.zsh-theme' >>~/.zshrc
   source ~/.zshrc
   

   The code above will automatically start your configure process, if you're not happy with what you end up with, you can always:

   p10k configure
   

   to reconfigure, it's pretty handy.

10. Improve your .zshrc: There are a lot can be done to make your zsh easier to use. I don't edit a lot, but since I'm a lazy person, I would set some alias just to type fewer letters. For example if you use the command "python" a lot, I would suggest you set "py" as an alias for "python" (4 letters less, isnt' that cool?)

    I also use neovim as my default text editor, "nvim" is its command, but I just type "v" to initiate it. So if you are lazy like me, you can copy my following code and add to your .zshrc:

    alias py="python"
    alias v="nvim" 
    alias vi="nvim" 
    alias vim="nvim"
    

    You can certainly do more with these alias, but you get the basic idea, just don't go too crazy with alias in the beginning.

11. Set zsh as your default shell: Simple, just open windows terminal and set the default shell as git-bash.

Uninstallation

What, so soon?

Well, you can certainlly uninstall it of course.

If you are 100% about quiting programming entirely, uninstall git all together, otherwise you just have to delete .bashrc .zshrc, delete .oh-my-zsh folder entirely, and then set back powershell as your default shell.