Terminal Configuration

Overview

Unconfigured, the terminal is a pretty terrible place. It’s hard to work in, it’s unforgiving, and in many ways it has a terrible user interface. With a little bit of effort, you can transform these offenses into the perfect workplace, a true model of efficiency. With a well-configured terminal, you’re much more likely to actually enjoy sitting at the command prompt.

“Terminal Configuration” is a very broad category, and indeed we’ve already covered pieces of it in other places. You use bash to configure bash, Vim for Vim, etc. Obviously, to learn about the specifics of these technologies you should see the lessons in their respective topics. The purpose of this “Terminal Configuration” topic is to pull together the loose ends, offer some special tips, and discuss the logistics of it all.

Lessons

Resources

  • Repositories named “dotfiles”
    • Every repository on GitHub that’s named “dotfiles”. Browsing the source of other people’s dotfiles is a great way to discover new things.
  • GitHub Does Dotfiles
    • GitHub’s personal getting-started-with-dotfiles page. It links to resources like all-in-one dotfiles frameworks, dotfiles management software, and great examples of dotfiles repos.
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