Switch to Zsh & Oh-My-Zsh

Here’s another piece of shell ‘coolness’… used by this old geek.

Oh My Zsh is a delightful, open source, community-driven framework for managing your Zsh configuration :

  1. Here is their Website. This site is a full, traditional (yes, elegant) Linux web support, documentation site.
  2. Here is their GitHub page. This page offers excellent instructions on installation and basic use.

Here are reference sites on zsh to help you understand why you might want to use it, rather than something else.

I did a bit of research and based on my discovery(ies) I changed my .profile to reflect a check for bash, zsh or something else, rather than a simple check for bash-only. Here is the reference I followed (it may be wrong, I’m no expert). Anyway it seems to work:

Here’s my revised .profile (use it at your own risk.).

# ~/.profile: executed by the command interpreter for login shells.
# Edited for Lilidog to add /sbin and /usr/sbin to path for shell.
# This file is not read by bash(1), if ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bash_login
# exists.
# see /usr/share/doc/bash/examples/startup-files for examples.
# the files are located in the bash-doc package.

# the default umask is set in /etc/profile; for setting the umask
# for ssh logins, install and configure the libpam-umask package.
#umask 022

# if running bash
#if [ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ]; then
# include .bashrc if it exists
# if [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ]; then
# . "$HOME/.bashrc"
# fi
#fi

# check if running bash or zsh or something else
if [ -n "$($SHELL -c 'echo $ZSH_VERSION')" ]; then
# assume Zsh
. "$HOME/.zshrc"
elif [ -n "$($SHELL -c 'echo $BASH_VERSION')" ]; then
# assume Bash
. "$HOME/.bashrc"
else
# assume something else
fi


# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/.local/bin" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
fi

# include sbin in PATH
if [ -d "/sbin" ] ; then
PATH="${PATH:+${PATH}:}/sbin"
fi

if [ -d "/usr/sbin" ] ; then
PATH="${PATH:+${PATH}:}/usr/sbin"
fi

Here’s a proof of life scrot:

This content is free to use, adapt, and share.
Knowledge and information should be open—please spread them far and wide.

A few things to keep in mind:

  • All of my work comes with absolutely no warranty, expressed or implied. However…
  • It will almost certainly work until it breaks,
    though I must admit it may never work or be useful—and that would be sad.
  • If/when it breaks, you can keep all the pieces.
  • As for what you don’t like, it’s yours to do with as you will.
  • If you find my materials helpful, both you and I will be happy (at least for a while).
  • My advice is worth every penny you paid for it!

Full disclosure:
I use various AI systems to assist in developing my content.
If you’re curious about how I use them, feel free to check out:
The Revolutionary Impact of AI on Genealogy and Historical Research.