This guide provides an easy-to-follow introduction to Z Shell, commonly known as Zsh, which is a powerful shell designed for interactive use and as a scripting language. It includes many enhancements over other shells like Bash, including themes, plugins, and improved tab completion and globbing.
By the end of this guide, you will understand the basics of Zsh, including how to customize your environment and write scripts for automation.
Zsh is known for its user-friendliness and powerful features that improve productivity, especially in command line completion and correction. It's highly customizable and supports loads of plugins and themes through frameworks like Oh My Zsh, making your command line easier to use and visually appealing.
Zsh's advanced features and customization options can be overwhelming to new users. Additionally, because it is not the default shell on most systems, setting it up and configuring it might require additional steps.
To start using Zsh, you'll need:
In this section, we'll cover the foundational elements of using Zsh:
We'll go through a practical example where you'll customize your Zsh prompt and write a script to display directory contents in a formatted manner.