Tutorial for customizing a terminal

Start with installing the zsh in your system

 sudo apt install zsh

Output

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
 zsh-common
Suggested packages:
 zsh-doc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
 zsh zsh-common
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4794 kB of archives.
After this operation, 18.2 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 zsh-common all 5.8.1-1 [3985 kB]
Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 zsh amd64 5.8.1-1 [809 kB]
Fetched 4794 kB in 13s (366 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package zsh-common.
(Reading database ... 44588 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../zsh-common_5.8.1-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking zsh-common (5.8.1-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package zsh.
Preparing to unpack .../archives/zsh_5.8.1-1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking zsh (5.8.1-1) ...
Setting up zsh-common (5.8.1-1) ...
Setting up zsh (5.8.1-1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ...

paste the following command into your terminal. You can also get the link from the ohmy-zsh website.

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

Output

Cloning Oh My Zsh...
remote: Enumerating objects: 1428, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (1428/1428), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1364/1364), done.
remote: Total 1428 (delta 39), reused 1135 (delta 36), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (1428/1428), 3.26 MiB | 223.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (39/39), done.
From https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh
 * [new branch]      master     -> origin/master
Branch 'master' set up to track remote branch 'master' from 'origin'.
Already on 'master'
/home/usr

Looking for an existing zsh config...
Using the Oh My Zsh template file and adding it to /home/genomics/.zshrc.

Time to change your default shell to zsh:
Do you want to change your default shell to zsh? [Y/n] y
Changing your shell to /usr/bin/zsh...
[sudo] password for `user_account`:
Shell successfully changed to '/usr/bin/zsh'.


         __                                     __
  ____  / /_     ____ ___  __  __   ____  _____/ /_
 / __ \/ __ \   / __ `__ \/ / / /  /_  / / ___/ __ \
/ /_/ / / / /  / / / / / / /_/ /    / /_(__  ) / / /
\____/_/ /_/  /_/ /_/ /_/\__, /    /___/____/_/ /_/
                        /____/                       ....is now installed!


Before you scream Oh My Zsh! look over the `.zshrc` file to select plugins, themes, and options.

• Follow us on X: https://x.com/ohmyzsh
• Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/ohmyzsh
• Get stickers, t-shirts, coffee mugs and more: https://shop.planetargon.com/collections/oh-my-zsh

Upto this point you have succesfully changed your terminal/ shell. It will have the following look.

➜  ~  

You may wish to do more cutomization.

Autosuggestions

Run the following code into your terminal

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

Output

Cloning into '/home/genomics/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 2577, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (192/192), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (102/102), done.
remote: Total 2577 (delta 117), reused 139 (delta 86), pack-reused 2385 (from 1)
Receiving objects: 100% (2577/2577), 590.57 KiB | 1019.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1648/1648), done.

Set the zsh autosuggestion into the zsh configuration folder. Use any text editor such as vs code gedit nano or vim to open the .zshrc file. In this case I used vs code.

code ~/.zshrc

edit the plugins which will first be looking like this

plugins=(git)

add zsh-autosuggestions in the brackets and save the file.

plugins=(git zsh-autosuggestions)

To activate the changes and make it work, write the following code

source ~/.zshrc

Done. The autosuggestion is now working 😄

Installing themes

watch more in this youtube video from minute 7:13 for further guidance.