Better WSL terminal

In your search of a Linux terminal on Windows you might have stumbled across projects such as cmder and WSL. There are many more projects like those. Personally for me this was the only configuration (in this post) that ended my search for a better terminal on a Windows PC.

Below steps are for impatient humans ( me included :p )

Better WSL terminal, steps

1. Install VcXsrv on windows host
2. Install WSL from windows store
3. Inside WSL (bash), run

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install terminator npm nodejs-legacy
   sudo npm install --global base16-builder  
   mkdir -p ~/.config/terminator  
   base16-builder -s solarized -t terminator -b dark > ~/.config/terminator/config  
   wget -O ~/.dir_colors https://raw.githubusercontent.com/seebi/dircolors-solarized/master/dircolors.256dark
   

4. To test, launch terminator from bash.exe

   $ DISPLAY=:0 terminator

5. Setup terminator to load .bashrc
   Right click on the terminator window and select preferences. On profiles tab, tick check Run command as login shell. This will enable terminator to read the rc files on startup
6. Edit ~/.bash_profile to contain

   if [[ -f ~/.bashrc ]] ; then
           . ~/.bashrc
   fi
   
   if [ -f ~/.dir_colors ]; then
     eval `dircolors ~/.dir_colors`
   fi
   
   PS1="\[\e[1;4m\]WIN\[\e[m\] \[\e[36m\]\u\[\e[m\]@\[\e[32m\]\h:\[\e[33;1m\]\w\[\e[m\]$ "
   

7. Create a shortcut to load terminator directly
   Create a vbs file – terminator.vbs (Example location – C:\apps\appLinks\terminator.vbs)
   args = “-c” & ” -l ” & “””DISPLAY=:0 terminator”””
   WScript.CreateObject(“Shell.Application”).ShellExecute “bash”, args, “”, “open”, 0Finally create shortcut for VBS, with below properties
   Target: C:\Windows\System32\wscript.exe C:\apps\appLinks\terminator.vbs
   Start In: %USERPROFILE%

For a longer version do read this blog – https://blog.ropnop.com/configuring-a-pretty-and-usable-terminal-emulator-for-wsl/

It is a very inspiring blogpost.

HTH

References

1. https://blog.ropnop.com/configuring-a-pretty-and-usable-terminal-emulator-for-wsl/
2. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44012495/terminator-not-loading-bashrc-or-vimrc