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Add zsh to Fedora

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One of my students requested an option to the bash shell. It was interesting to hear that he wanted me to instal the zsh in my Fedora image. There’s only one book that I’m aware of that’s been published on the Z Shell, and it is From Bash to Z Shell.

This post shows how to add the zsh to my Fedora image because I already release a new one for the term without the zsh shell. You use the yum utility as the root user to install the zsh library:

yum install -y zsh

It should produce an output stream like the following, which required accessing the alternate mirror site:

Loaded plugins: langpacks, refresh-packagekit
mysql-connectors-community                                  | 2.5 kB  00:00     
mysql-tools-community                                       | 2.5 kB  00:00     
mysql56-community                                           | 2.5 kB  00:00     
pgdg93                                                      | 3.6 kB  00:00     
updates/20/x86_64/metalink                                  |  14 kB  00:00     
updates                                                     | 4.9 kB  00:00     
(1/3): mysql-connectors-community/20/x86_64/primary_db      | 8.8 kB  00:00     
(2/3): pgdg93/20/x86_64/primary_db                          |  83 kB  00:01     
(3/3): updates/20/x86_64/primary_db                         |  13 MB  00:13     
updates/20/x86_64/pkgtags      FAILED                                           
http://mirror.utexas.edu/fedora/linux/updates/20/x86_64/repodata/1ea83dc402a2bcba53f9b0011ecfa0d579b5a316e4c7f01ec5f1166dcdca138f-pkgtags.sqlite.gz: [Errno 14] HTTP Error 404 - Not Found
Trying other mirror.
(1/2): updates/20/x86_64/updateinfo                         | 1.9 MB  00:07     
(2/2): updates/20/x86_64/pkgtags                            | 1.4 MB  00:01     
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package zsh.x86_64 0:5.0.7-6.fc20 will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
 
Dependencies Resolved
 
================================================================================
 Package       Arch             Version                 Repository         Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 zsh           x86_64           5.0.7-6.fc20            updates           2.5 M
 
Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install  1 Package
 
Total download size: 2.5 M
Installed size: 5.9 M
Downloading packages:
zsh-5.0.7-6.fc20.x86_64.rpm                                 | 2.5 MB  00:03     
Running transaction check
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded
Running transaction (shutdown inhibited)
  Installing : zsh-5.0.7-6.fc20.x86_64                                      1/1 
  Verifying  : zsh-5.0.7-6.fc20.x86_64                                      1/1 
 
Installed:
  zsh.x86_64 0:5.0.7-6.fc20                                                     
 
Complete!

Once you’ve installed the zsh, you can configure like you would the bash shell. You make edits to individual .zshrc files and generic changes to the /etc/zshrc file. You can find the documentation to edit the zsh in the User’s Guide to the Z-Shell.

The following is a modified .zshrc file. The changes enable the up-arrow in Oracle’s sqlplus and provides you with a color prompt, like this:

# Source global definitions
if [ -f /etc/zshrc ]; then
  . /etc/zshrc
fi
 
# Uncomment the following line if you don't like systemctl's auto-paging feature:
# export SYSTEMD_PAGER=
 
# Set the JAVA_HOME path.
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.7.0-openjdk-1.7.0.75-2.5.4.2.fc20.x86_64
 
# Set the CLASSPATH path.
export CLASSPATH=/usr/share/java/mysql-connector-java.jar:.
 
# User specific aliases and functions
. /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/bin/oracle_env.sh
 
# Wrap sqlplus with rlwrap to edit prior lines with the
# up, down, left and right keys.
sqlplus()
{
  if [ "$RLWRAP" = "0" ]; then
    sqlplus "$@"
  else
    rlwrap sqlplus "$@"
  fi
}
 
# Set the bindkey.
bindkey -v
bindkey "^R" history-incremental-search-backward
export EDITOR="vim"
 
# history stuff
HISTFILE=~/.zsh-histfile
HISTSIZE=2000
 
# Set vi as a command line editor.
set -o vi
 
autoload -U colors && colors
PS1="[%{$fg[red]%}%n%{$reset_color%}@%{$fg[blue]%}%m %{$fg[yellow]%}%~%{$reset_color%}% ]$ "

The zsh prompt looks like the following:

[student@localhost ~]$

If you’re configured with a bash shell, you can change your shell to a zsh with the following command:

chsh -s /bin/zsh

As always, I hope this helps those looking for this type of information.

Written by maclochlainn

April 22nd, 2015 at 11:09 pm