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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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zsh or fish for an intermediate Linux user? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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So I've been using Linux now for a while, and am looking to migrate my dev environment to vim and spend more time in the command line. I'm fairly comfortable with bash but by no means an expert. I've used zsh with some minor customization but just recently learned about fish. I'd love to hear people's opinions.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

So, initially I stuck to bash and tried to get improved functionality through ble.sh etc. However, for reasons unknown to me, it always seemed to be a buggy mess that was prone to break. Eventually I switched after breaking one last time, where I only had installed ble.sh on a fresh/stock bash; which was the primary contributor that made bash bearable. So if I couldn't use ble.sh, I had no reason to stick to it.

When faced with the choice of where to go next, I quickly dismissed fish for not being POSIX-compliant. Furthermore, as bash is standard on Linux, so too is zsh standard on macOS. And that enables it to have legs beyond fish. However I also kept fish in mind as somewhat of a last resort if all else failed.

So I began venturing into zsh and was obviously overwhelmed by the myriad of plugins and plugin-managers. People generally go out and somehow stick to ohmyzsh, however it was clearly poorly managed and couldn't quite deal with the feature-creep in an elegant way.

Many plugin-managers have come out over the years as alternatives that promised to resolve those issues. However, while some of them succeeded initially, they weren't able to keep that up throughout their lifespan.

When I almost lost hope and had started to gravitate towards learning how I should manage my plugins on my own without any plugin-managers I stumbled upon ZSH Quickstart Kit. Which is a project that's clearly well-maintained and offered must-have functionality like automatically updating the the plugin-manager, plugins and more while still trying to maintain a high standard of reliability, performance, customization and minimalism. So obviously I had been sold on it and the rest has been history.

Ultimately it's for you to decide whichever one of the two suits you best. But if you gave zsh a try and wasn't quite sold on ohmyzsh or any of the other plugin-managers out there, then perhaps consider ZSH Quickstart Kit.