2022 Setup Guide for a cool terminal on Windows with Windows Terminal and WSL
Recently, I had to switch from Mac to Windows for development for some reason. PowerShell is very different from a Unix-like shell and it is hard for me to get used to. Here is where Window Subsystem Linux (WSL) comes to the rescue.
In this guide, I am going to show you how to set up a cool and convenient terminal on a Windows machine with the following:
- Windows Subsystem Linux 2 (WSL2)
- Ubuntu on WSL
- OhMyZsh
- Powerlevel10k
- Windows Terminal
The Steps
Step 1. Install WSL and reboot the machine
Go to Start > PowerShell. Then, type in the command
wsl --installAfter the command runs successfully, you may have to reboot the machine for it to work.
Step 2. Install a Linux Distro
To check which distros are available, we can use wsl --list --online.
In this guide, we will install the distro Ubuntu 20.04. To install, type wsl --install -d Ubuntu-20.04.
After installation, finish the Ubuntu setup by providing a new username and password. Now you have a Linux running within your Windows! You can close the WSL window for the moment. We will come back to WSL after we install the Windows Terminal.
Finally, type wsl -s Ubuntu-20.04 in PowerShell to set Ubuntu 20.04 as the default distro
Step 3. Install and setup Windows Terminal
If you have used iTerm2 or any other modern terminal before, you may find that the experience with Command Prompt and PowerShell is not good enough.
Windows Terminal, open-sourced by Microsoft does a much better job. It supports terminal profiles, new tabs/panes, and a command palette.
To download Windows Terminal, go to the Microsoft Store and look for Windows Terminal
After installing Windows Terminal, open Settings from the menu or press Ctrl + , on your keyboard to change these settings:
- Use Ubuntu-20.04 as default startup profile (You can switch to Command Prompt or PowerShell anytime when you open a new tab)
- Choose the font MesloGS NF in Profile > Defaults > Appearance.
This is important for displaying icons and glyphs. You can download the fonts from the Powerlevel10k repository (https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k#fonts)
Step 4. Install zsh and OhMyZsh
To install zsh, run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y zsh to update the latest package info and install zsh. Once you have installed it successfully, you should be able to see it in /etc/shells.
OhMyZsh is a framework for managing zsh configs and plugins. To install, run the command sh -c "$(wget -O- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)". When prompted, press y to set zsh as your default shell.
As you can see at the end of the screen recording, the prompt looked different after installing OhMyZsh.
Step 5. Install and configure Powerlevel10k
Powerlevel10k is the secret sauce of creating that stunning terminal.
To install, run git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k.
Then, enable the theme by setting ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k" in .zshrc with your favorite text editor. If you are not familiar with any screen-based text editor, you can use cd ~ && explorer.exe . to open the directory so that you can edit .zshrc on Windows.
After that, run zsh and a powerlevel10k setup menu will show up. Just follow the guide and select what looks best for you. If you can’t see the icons/glyphs, you might want to look into your font settings again.
There is something more
More command prompt elements
With powerlevel10k, you can configure what elements to show in the prompt. For example, I like to have the CPU and RAM usage displayed. To add or remove elements, modify POWERLEVEL9K_RIGHT_PROMPT_ELEMENTS under ~/.p10k.zsh. Just uncomment the lines to enable that element and do the opposite if you want to disable it. After changing the file, run zsh to see the effects immediately.
The Command Palette
As mentioned in the Windows Terminal section, there is a command palette in Windows Terminal. You can find shortcuts and see cool functions provided by the app. Just press Ctrl + Shift + P on your keyboard to explore more!
More Color Schemes!
If you would like more color schemes for your Windows Terminal, you can find them here:
That’s all for this guide. Thank you for reading and I hope you find this useful.
Have fun playing with Powerlevel10k and Windows Terminal!
References
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install
https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k/blob/master/README.md
https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/blob/master/README.md
https://zimmergren.net/install-custom-themes-in-windows-terminal/
