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Practical BASHRC Tweaks to Master the Terminal

Journey from a Noob to a Linux Geek, starts with facing the fear of the Terminal. Let's overcome this anxiety by beautifying the Terminal and making quality of life changes to our Terminal Workflow.

Bash is a default shell on all almost every major Linux distro. Let’s see how we can make our life easier by modifying bashrc, while working in the terminal.

📝 My .bashrc Configuration

You can just add it to your .bashrc and start using, if you know what you are doing.

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## Bash History
HISTSIZE=10000
HISTFILESIZE=20000
### HISTFILE location
export HISTFILE="$HOME/.bash_history"
### Ignore/Erase duplicates and spaces
HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth:erasedups
### Append history
shopt -s histappend
### Clear, Reload and Append
PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a; history -c; history -r"

## Check & Update Display Dimensions
shopt -s checkwinsize

## Smarter TAB Completion
bind 'set completion-ignore-case on'

## Better Reverse History Search (Tested on Fedora Only)
#if [[ $- == *i* ]]; then
# __fzf_history__() {
#   local selected
#   selected=$(history | fzf --tac +s --reverse --height 40% |
#     sed 's/^[ ]*[0-9]*[ ]*//') || return
#   READLINE_LINE=$selected
#   READLINE_POINT=${#READLINE_LINE}
# }
# bind -x '"\C-r": __fzf_history__'
#fi

## Custom Environment Variables
#export PATH=~/.cargo/bin/:$PATH
#export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH
#export PATH=~/.local/bin:$PATH
#export EDITOR="nvim"
#export BUNDLE_PATH=~/.gems

## Bitwarden SSH agent
#export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/home/abuturab/.bitwarden-ssh-agent.sock

## Custom Aliases
### Smarter Copy and Move
alias cp='cp -vi'
alias mv='mv -vi'
### Better ls command
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
alias ll='ls -l --color=auto'
alias la='ls -al --color=auto'
alias lah='ls -alh --color=auto'
### Even Prettier ls (requires lsd)
#alias ls='lsd'
#alias ll='lsd -l'
#alias la='lsd -al'
### better cat
alias cat='less -N'
#alias cat='cat -n' # Pipe it to less
### bat: a (cat) with wings
#alias cat='alias bat'
#alias cat='alias batcat' #Debian-based systems
### rm 
alias `rm` = `rm -vi`
### Even Better rm (trash)
#alias rm='trash -vi' #needs trash-cli package
### Better grep
alias grep='grep -i --color=auto'
### Cloudflare Warp
#alias connect="warp-cli connect"
#alias disconnect="warp-cli disconnect"
#alias status="warp-cli status"
#alias restart="warp-cli disconnect && warp-cli connect"
### Editor
#alias vim='nvim '

## Starship Prompt
eval "$(starship init bash)"

This bashrc might break your shell, as some configurations need extra packages to be first installed on the system. I have commented out all those settings/aliases which require extra packages.

Now, let’s explain the configuration:

Bash History

A Bash history file:

export HISTFILE="$HOME/.bash_history"

Bigger bash history and in-memory history:

HISTSIZE=10000
HISTFILESIZE=20000
  • HISTSIZE Keeps up to 10,000 commands in the session memory
  • HISTFILESIZE Keeps up to 100,000 commands in the history file

Avoid Duplicates

To avoid duplicate spaces and matching commands in your history file:

HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth:erasedups
  • ignoreboth Ignore lines starting with spaces and matching lines in the history
  • erasedups Remove duplicated lines from the history

Append and Update History

When multiple terminal windows are opened, each session history won’t overwrite the others.

shopt -s histappend

To append latest command, clear and reload history file back into memory:

PROMPT_COMMAND="history -a; history -c; history -r"
  • history -a Append the latest command(s) from the current session to the history
  • history -c clear the in-memory history of the current shell
  • history -r Read the history files back into memory

Check & Update Terminal Display Dimensions

Check the size of the terminal window after each command and if necessary update the values of lines and columns:

shopt -s checkwinsize

The programs like less, btop etc., which rely on the window size to show information. With this option, they can update the information shown according the window dimensions.

Reverse Search History Ctrl+R

To make reverse search better, install the fzf package, then:

if [[ $- == *i* ]]; then
  __fzf_history__() {
    local selected
    selected=$(history | fzf --tac +s --reverse --height 40% |
      sed 's/^[ ]*[0-9]*[ ]*//') || return
    READLINE_LINE=$selected
    READLINE_POINT=${#READLINE_LINE}
  }
  bind -x '"\C-r": __fzf_history__'
fi
  • Ctrl+R Search history in reverse
  • Ctrl+J Move down in the history
  • Ctrl+K Move up in the history
  • Enter Add highlighted command to input shell, hit Enter again to run the command
🚨 I have tested this only on Fedora

TAB Completion

When you try to change directory using cd, and hit TAB, it completes the path for you. Default is case-sensitive completion, let’s change it:

bind 'set completion-ignore-case on'

Now using shell commands when you write dow and hit TAB, it will autocomplete to Download ignoring the case.

Custom Environment Variables

Some necessary environment variables for development:

export PATH=~/.cargo/bin/:$PATH
export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH
export PATH=~/.local/bin:$PATH
export EDITOR="nvim"
export BUNDLE_PATH=~/.gems

Custom Aliases

You can set custom aliases to gain some quality of life improvements:

cp and mv 

cp -vi [Source] [Destination]

mv -vi [Source] [Destination]
  • --verbose/-v Explains what is being done
  • --interactive/-i Prompt before overwrite

Let’s make them an alias:

alias cp='cp -vi'
alias mv='mv -vi'

So, it will show what are you copying, and before overwriting anything it will ask for confirmation [Reply with y to continue].

ls OR lsd

By default, ls output is not colorized.

Let’s make it better:

alias ls='ls --color=auto'

Other improvements:

alias ll='ls -l --color=auto'
alias la='ls -al --color=auto'
alias lah='ls -alh --color=auto'
  • -l Use a long listing format
  • -a/--all show hidden files and DIRS (starting with .)
  • -h/--human-readable Print human-readable sizes

We can go a step further and replace ls with lsd, which is even prettier with icons support.

📌 Installation Required

First install lsd package available on Fedora (dnf), Debian/Debian-based distros(apt), and Archlinux(pacman), with your respective package manager.

alias ls='lsd'
alias ll='lsd -l'
alias la='lsd -al'

We don’t need -h as it’s the default behavior for lsd

cat OR bat

The cat command output what’s in the file, without any beautification.

Let’s add:

alias cat='less -N'
  • less Interactively show contents of the files
  • -N/--LINE-NUMBERS Causes a line number to be displayed at the beginning of each line.
💡 Tip

The less command doesn’t support concatenation of outputs. If you rely on the feature use:

cat -n FILE1 | less
  • | Pipes the output of previous command to next command

The more modern option is bat, which shows pretty colors with numbering, header with filename, and interactive viewing.

📌 Installation Required

You will need the bat package on your system.

alias cat='alias bat'
OR
alias cat='alias batcat' #Debian-based systems

For full feature list visit.

rm OR trash

The rm command deletes files or directories from the system.

alias `rm` = `rm -vi`
  • -v/--verbose Explain what is being done
  • -i Prompt before every removal

The rm command directly removes the files from the system without first moving them to the trash/recycle bin.

A better way to remove files is using trash-cli. It moves files to the recycle bin, in case of any accidental deletion, we restore deleted content via trash-restore. It also removes directories without any further flag/s needed.

📌 Installation Required!

Please install trash-cli package first on your distro of choice.

alias rm='trash -vi'

grep

To colorize grep:

alias grep='grep -i --color=auto'
  • -i/--ignore-case Ignore case distinction in patterns or input data

Beautify the Prompt

Install starship package first, then add following to the end of .bashrc:

eval "$(starship init bash)"

Check out my minimalist starship config:

Click here... 
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add_newline = true
command_timeout = 200
format = "[$directory$git_branch$git_status]($style)$character"

[character]
error_symbol = "[✗](bold cyan)"
success_symbol = "[❯](bold cyan)"

[directory]
truncation_length = 2
truncation_symbol = "…/"
repo_root_style = "bold cyan"
repo_root_format = "[$repo_root]($repo_root_style)[$path]($style)[$read_only]($read_only_style) "

[git_branch]
format = "[$branch]($style) "
style = "italic cyan"

[git_status]
format     = '[$all_status]($style)'
style      = "cyan"
ahead      = "⇡${count} "
diverged   = "⇕⇡${ahead_count}⇣${behind_count} "
behind     = "⇣${count} "
conflicted = " "
up_to_date = " "
untracked  = "? "
modified   = " "
stashed    = ""
staged     = ""
renamed    = ""
deleted    = ""

Save it as starship.toml to ~/.config/.

💡 Documentation

Checkout the starship configuration docs, for more options and example configs.

References

© 2022 - 2026 Sajid Mahmood
Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
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