Ubuntu Like Terminal in Mac | Bash

If you shifted from ubuntu to MAC recently you will that the terminal is not as impressing as it was in Ubuntu. As for someone who spends a lot of time on terminal I wanted to make my mac terminal as close to Ubuntu’s default terminal. I like to keep things easy and simple

There are two routes you can go from here:

• Use Zsh(with oh-my-zsh) and various other packages
  This is what you will find is the most common way to go about powering up your terminal. I realized I didn’t need zsh superpowers and it was slowing the terminal down
• Upgrade and customize your BASH
  This option suited my need so let’s go with this one.

Here’s a list of things I need in my terminal:

• It needs to be fast (no compromises here)
• Appropriate colors for files and folders etc
• Command completion (Because I am dumb)
• Some nice message like : ‘we-are-ready-to-take-down-the-internet-just-press-y’

So let’s get started

Install Brew

Brew is the package manager for mac, you are gonna use it a lot in the future. Just paste the command below in your terminal and we are good to go:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Install Bash

Now mac comes with a default bash which is really old(3) so we are gonna install a new one. Check this blog to get more details

brew install bash

Now to set it as default shell

chsh -s /usr/local/bin/bash

Check if everything is working fine:

echo $BASH_VERSION
# 5.0.0(1)-release

Now comes the interesting part of powering your default shell. As you may notice it’s a little faster than zsh but that’s also because it’s bare bone.Now let’s prettify it.

Colors and git support

Create a file in your home directory

touch ~/.bash_profile

Now to add colors into this file.

# for Brew
export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"
# Hides the default login message
export BASH_SILENCE_DEPRECATION_WARNING=1
# set a fancy prompt (non-color, unless we know we "want" color)
case "$TERM" in
    xterm-color|*-256color) color_prompt=yes;;
esac
# Enable colors in bash
export CLICOLOR=1
export LSCOLORS=GxBxCxDxexegedabagaced
 
# get current git branch
parse_git_branch() {
    git branch 2> /dev/null | sed -e '/^[^*]/d' -e 's/* \(.*\)/ (\1)/'
}
# find username@hostname:$ 
export PS1="\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[0;32m\]\$(parse_git_branch)\[\033[00m\]\$ "

Tip: You can copy the content from here and use pbpaste >> .bash_profile to paste directly from the terminal

Tip: You can restart your terminal to see the changes or source .bash_profile to see the changes without quitting.

Tip: You can change a lot of things from terminal preferences in Mac like colors, transparency, background etc.

Command completion

Now let’s get to the part that really boosts your productivity. Auto command completion is probably the best thing that happened since some invented peanut butter.

brew install bash-completion@2

Now it might clash with bash-completion so just remove that package, it’s for older versions of bash

Now let’s add more content to our .bash_profile

# for bash completion
export BASH_COMPLETION_COMPAT_DIR="$(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion.d"
[[ -r "$(brew --prefix)/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh" ]] && . "$(brew --prefix)/etc/profile.d/bash_completion.sh"

You can install more bash completion packages by finding using them

brew search completion

e.g.

brew install docker-completion

And that’s all.

# try git [tab] 
add            branch         clean          difftool       grep           merge          range-diff     request-pull   shortlog       submodule
am             bundle         clone          fetch          gui            mergetool      rebase         reset          show           switch
apply          checkout       commit         format-patch   help           mv             reflog         restore        show-branch    tag
archive        cherry         config         fsck           init           notes          remote         revert         stage          whatchanged
bisect         cherry-pick    describe       gc             instaweb       pull           repack         rm             stash          worktree
blame          citool         diff           gitk           log            push           replace        send-email     status

And there you got it, folks!!

Note: Install git using brew by

brew install git

by default, it uses from Xcode and I don’t know what’s up with that

BONUS: Setting up NVM

Now I am a web developer and node is an essential part of my dev setup. All this started with nvm being too slow on my terminal on startup and I wanted the old bash back. So let’s get to it.

Install

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.35.1/install.sh | bash

Adding to your terminal

# for node 
export NVM_DIR="/Users/jashan/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" && source "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" # This loads nvm
# bash completion for npm 
source <(npm completion)

This works but it slows down your terminal considerably. Check this issue. Now until they fix we can lazy load the node using the below script. Source

# Defer initialization of nvm until nvm, node or a node-dependent command is
# run. Ensure this block is only run once if .bashrc gets sourced multiple times
# by checking whether __init_nvm is a function.
if [ -s "$HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh" ] && [ ! "$(type -t __init_nvm)" = function ]; then
  export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
  [ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && . "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion"
  declare -a __node_commands=('nvm' 'node' 'npm' 'yarn' 'gulp' 'grunt' 'webpack')
  function __init_nvm() {
    for i in "${__node_commands[@]}"; do unalias $i; done
    . "$NVM_DIR"/nvm.sh
    unset __node_commands
    unset -f __init_nvm
  }
  for i in "${__node_commands[@]}"; do alias $i='__init_nvm && '$i; done
fi

Note: Choose only one from the above.
This ensures that nvm only runs when we need it and not at the start of terminal.

Now you have got a productive bash to work with. It’s got colors and command completion and some more things that I don’t know of.

Sources:
https://brew.sh/
https://www.growingwiththeweb.com/2018/01/slow-nvm-init.html
https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm/issues/1277
https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/bash-completion@2
https://misc.flogisoft.com/bash/tip_colors_and_formatting