How to Set Up Oh My Zsh and Powerlevel10k on Fedora

zsh with Powerlevel10k and Oh My Zsh running on Fedora

I had this setup running on WSL for many years and wanted the same on Fedora. Since I’m still using WSL on my other machine, I wanted the exact same setup on both to not confuse my muscle memory 😄. Here are the steps I followed, in order.

Step 1: Install zsh

Fedora ships with bash, so the first step is installing zsh:

sudo dnf install zsh

Verify it installed correctly:

zsh --version
# zsh 5.9 (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu)

Step 2: Install Oh My Zsh

Oh My Zsh is the framework that adds useful features. It manages themes and plugins and comes with a huge set of sensible defaults out of the box.

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

A few things happen automatically when this runs:

• Oh My Zsh is cloned into ~/.oh-my-zsh (about 3.3 MB)
• A new ~/.zshrc is created from the Oh My Zsh template — this is where your themes, plugins, and aliases live
• Your default shell is changed to zsh by running chsh under the hood, which updates /etc/passwd to point your user to /usr/bin/zsh — it’ll ask for your password for this step

After the install finishes, close and reopen your terminal and you’ll already be in zsh.

Step 3: Add the Essential Plugins

There are two plugins that I consider non-negotiable. Once you try them, you’ll wonder how you managed without them.

zsh-autosuggestions — as you type, it shows a greyed-out ghost suggestion based on your command history. Hit the right arrow key to accept it. It’s subtle but it cuts down repetitive typing significantly.

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions 
  ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

zsh-syntax-highlighting — colors your command as you type it. Valid commands turn green, unrecognized commands turn red. Typos become immediately visible before you even hit enter.

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting 
  ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting

After cloning both, open ~/.zshrc and find the plugins=(...) line. Add both to the list:

plugins=(git zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting)

Then reload your config:

source ~/.zshrc

Step 4: Powerlevel10k

The default Oh My Zsh themes are fine, but Powerlevel10k is in a different league. It’s fast, highly configurable, and shows useful context right in your prompt — current directory, git branch and status, error codes, and more. It has a built-in configuration wizard that walks you through everything interactively.

Install the Font First

Powerlevel10k uses special glyphs that require a patched font. Download these four files from the Powerlevel10k fonts page:

• MesloLGS NF Regular.ttf
• MesloLGS NF Bold.ttf
• MesloLGS NF Italic.ttf
• MesloLGS NF Bold Italic.ttf

Install them by double-clicking each file, or by copying them into ~/.local/share/fonts/ and running fc-cache -f -v.

Then set the font in your terminal. In GNOME Terminal: Preferences → select your profile → Text → enable Custom font → select MesloLGS NF Regular.

If you use the VS Code integrated terminal, you’ll need to do two things. First, set it to use zsh — by default it opens bash. Open VS Code settings, search for terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.linux, and set it to zsh. Second, set the font so the Powerlevel10k glyphs render correctly — search for terminal.integrated.fontFamily and set it to MesloLGS NF. Then Restart VS Code. Without this, you’ll see broken squares instead of icons.

Install the Theme

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git 
  "${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k"

Open ~/.zshrc, find the line that sets ZSH_THEME, and change it:

ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k"

Then reload:

source ~/.zshrc

The Powerlevel10k configuration wizard will launch automatically. It asks a series of visual questions — does this icon look right, do you prefer this style or that one — and builds your prompt config based on your answers. The whole thing takes about two minutes and the result is a prompt that actually shows you useful information at a glance.

After all of this, the terminal is in a good shape. One more thing I’d recommend — try the Darcula theme on GNOME Terminal. It pairs really well with Powerlevel10k and is easy on the eyes for long sessions. And if the font feels too small after setting MesloLGS NF, just bump it up a couple of sizes in Preferences → Text → Custom font. Don’t suffer through a small font.

If you’re on Fedora (or any Linux distro) and haven’t done this yet, it’s worth the half hour.

Smooth typing!