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 if zsh is available on the system.

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 bash and a login or non-login 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.

CategoryLXCL