The default Linux terminal prompt is often plain and inconvenient, making terminal beautification a highly rewarding task. While most online tutorials focus heavily on oh-my-zsh, running complex Bash scripts under Zsh can occasionally introduce syntax bugs. That’s why I stick to Bash. My lightweight yet powerful combo of choice is starship + ble.sh.

Here is my end result, and it feels incredibly smooth.

1. Forcing a Color Prompt

By default, many Linux distributions ship with a monochrome (black and white) prompt. This step ensures that at least your username and hostname are highlighted in color.

Open your ~/.bashrc, find the force_color_prompt variable, and set it to yes. If it doesn’t exist, append the following snippet:

force_color_prompt=yes

if [ -n "$force_color_prompt" ]; then
    if [ -x /usr/bin/tput ] && tput setaf 1 >&/dev/null; then
        color_prompt=yes
    else
        color_prompt=
    fi
fi

Then source ~/.bashrc.

2. ble.sh

ble.sh brings syntax highlighting and auto-completion to standard Bash. Download and install it using the following commands:

curl -L https://github.com/akinomyoga/ble.sh/releases/download/nightly/ble-nightly.tar.xz | tar xJf -
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/blesh
cp -Rf ble-nightly/* ~/.local/share/blesh/
rm -rf ble-nightly

Note: This installation applies only to the current user, not globally.

In ~/.bashrc add：

[[ -f ~/.local/share/blesh/ble.sh ]] && source ~/.local/share/blesh/ble.sh

To enable intelligent searching, add this in ~/.blerc：

cat << 'EOF' > ~/.blerc
ble-bind -f 'up' 'history-search-backward'
ble-bind -f 'down' 'history-search-forward'
EOF

We all know the standard arrow keys let you cycle through history. However, this bind introduces prefix-based searching. For example, if you type curl and press the Up arrow key, it will only cycle through past commands that start with curl.

3. starship

Starship is a minimal, blazing-fast, and infinitely customizable prompt for any shell. It instantly modernizes your command line interface.

Run the official installation script:

curl -sS https://starship.rs/install.sh | sudo sh -s -- -y

In ~/.bashrc add：

if command -v starship &> /dev/null; then
    eval "$(starship init bash)"
fi

Tip: If you are using ble.sh, make sure the Starship initialization block is placed below the ble.sh line.

Starship comes with various preset themes, or you can craft your own configuration:

mkdir -p ~/.config

# list available presets
starship preset --list

# apply one
starship preset catppuccin-powerline > ~/.config/starship.toml

Preview different presets here: https://starship.rs/presets/

Keep in mind that many themes rely heavily on special glyphs. You must install a Nerd Font in your local terminal emulator; otherwise, the icons sent by the VPS will render as broken characters.

I highly recommend picking up a font like JetBrains Mono Nerd Font from Nerd Fonts - Iconic font aggregator, glyphs/icons collection, & fonts patcher and setting it as the default font in your local terminal app.

Finally, reload your shell configuration: source ~/.bashrc.

Bonus: All-in-One Automated Script

I have wrapped up the entire process into a single script. After execution, remember to manually run source ~/.bashrc to apply the changes.

#!/bin/bash
curl -sS https://starship.rs/install.sh | sh -s -- -y
curl -L https://github.com/akinomyoga/ble.sh/releases/download/nightly/ble-nightly.tar.xz | tar xJf -
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/blesh
cp -Rf ble-nightly/* ~/.local/share/blesh/
rm -rf ble-nightly

cat <<EOF >> ~/.bashrc
force_color_prompt=yes

if [ -n "\$force_color_prompt" ]; then
    if [ -x /usr/bin/tput ] && tput setaf 1 >&/dev/null; then
        color_prompt=yes
    else
        color_prompt=
    fi
fi

[[ -f ~/.local/share/blesh/ble.sh ]] && source ~/.local/share/blesh/ble.sh

if command -v starship &> /dev/null; then
    eval "\$(starship init bash)"
fi
EOF

cat << 'EOF' > ~/.blerc
ble-bind -f 'up' 'history-search-backward'
ble-bind -f 'down' 'history-search-forward'
EOF

mkdir -p ~/.config
starship preset catppuccin-powerline > ~/.config/starship.toml