Is setting up a terminal the first thing you do with a new computer? If yes, then this is for you.

Shinichi Okada

5 days ago·4 min read

Towards Data Science published my article, The Ultimate Guide to Your Terminal Makeover in April 2020. It is one of my most popular articles. It has more than 65 K views since it was published and about 300 views daily.

This month I had to install the terminal on my new laptop. Following the steps in my own article, I thought “Hmm, I can automate all these installations.”

Subsequently, I created Terminal Makeover Automated (Terma). It automates installing the following packages on a new Mac:

• Homebrew
• iTerm2
• ZSH
• Oh-My-Zsh
• Starship
• Snazzy iTerm theme
• Fira code fonts
• iTerm2 preferences plist
• Plugins: autojump, brew, git, zsh-syntax-highlighting, and zsh-autosuggestions.

Caution

I created Terma for a new Mac. If you already installed iTerm2 and plugins, I suggest saving the ~/.oh-my-zsh directory, ~/.zshrc file, and ~/Library/Preferences/com.googlecode.iterm2.plist. I recommend using Automate Brew Installer first to save your brew list and then reinstall it after the Terma installation.

Installing Terma

Open a terminal and install the Awesome Package Manager.

Installing the Awesome Package Manager is easy. Run the following on your terminal:

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/shinokada/awesome/main/install | bash -s install

Once you have installed the Awesome Package Manager, install Terma.

awesome install shinokada/terma

Getting started

To run terma on your terminal, do the following:

terma

You’ll be asked for your password when installing Homebrew.

The Oh-My-Zsh installation exits the script, so you need to run terma again.

terma

iTerm2 is ready to rock!

When you open the newly installed iTerm press Ctrl+right-click and select Open.

The iTerm Preferences Profile is set with the name “Terma”, Color Presets of Snazzy, and font Fira code.

You can use brew aliases, such as bubu, auto-suggestions, auto jump, and all the above plugins.

Printing help

terma -h

Uninstalling Terma

You can remove all items installed including Homebrew. I suggest using Automated Brew Installation to save your brew list first.

terma uninstall

What I learned from writing Terma

At first, I wrote the script in Bash, then running source $HOME/.zshrc requires a ZSH script. I converted the script to ZSH. All I needed to change was the read command.

# Bash
read -rp "Do you want to uninstall? yes/y or no/n   " PANS# ZSH
read "PANS?Do you want to uninstall Y/y or N/n?   "

The script uses Homebrew to install packages except for Oh-My-Zsh. To avoid unnecessary error messages, the script sources appropriate .zshrc files. For the iTerm2 configuration file, it copies a premade com.googlecode.iterm2.plist file to the ~/Library/Preferences directory.

The script uses a heredoc to show the final message. The Figlet program can create large letters.

Conclusion

Since you will be installing a number of programs with Terma, it takes some time to complete. I tested terma on my 2015 Mac (x86_64) and 2021 Mac (ARM 64, M1 chip), and it worked flawlessly.

If you have your favorite iTerm2 setup, replace Terma’s com.googlecode.iterm2.plist with your plist file in the ~/Library/Preferences/com.googlecode.iterm2.plist directory.

Happy coding!

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