How can I have zsh as my default shell?

Everybody on the system has to use bash as login shell, because this allows us to put a standard configuration into each account. This remains the default shell of a User.

But don't worry, it's no problem to change the shell for all further operations after the login.

1. Create a backup of your ~/.bashrc, as it will be replaced to start zsh and not do anything else

   cp ~/.bashrc ~/.bashrc.bak
   

2. Replace the content of ~/.bashrc with the following commands:

   if [[ $- == *i* ]]; then
       # This is an interactive shell
       if [[ "${0}" == "-bash" || "${0}" == "bash" ]]; then
           # This is a bash login or non-login bash shell
           if [[ -x /bin/zsh ]]; then
               # zsh is present and executable
               export SHELL=/bin/zsh
               exec /bin/zsh
           fi
       fi
   fi
   

This only replaces bash with zsh for interactive shells, make sure you adapt your cronjobs and scripts yourself in case you want to use zsh there.

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