WorkStation

WorkStation🏠 and I will be listing all my tools that I use and sharing my workflow experience!

Tools

What am I covering in this?

1. Code editor that I use for my work
2. My terminal setup 
3. Installation process

Editor

Visual Studio Code, also known as VS Code, is a code editor for Linux, Windows, and macOS. It's a well know editor that I have used it for about 1 year and it is great! I have some extension installed in it that makes my workflow more simpler, wanna know what extensions I use? see below!

• Extensions

  • UI Theme
    • Horizon Theme - A beautifully warm dual theme for Visual Studio Code
    • Gruvbox Material Theme - Gruvbox with material palette for Visual Studio Code
  • File Icon theme
    • Helium Icon Theme - Helium and material design Icons for Visual Studio Code
  • Metting & Code sharing Purpose
    • Live Share - Real-time collaborative development from the comfort of your favorite tools
  • Code Screenshot
    • Polacode - An extension for Visual Studio Code to take a screenshot from your own editor.
  • Music extension
    • Music Time for Spotify - This helps me to control songs from VScode directly while coding

Terminal

Newly Launched Microsoft terminal looks so cool after doing some modifications that I'll be discussing later in this section.

• Terminal Utilities

  • Neofetch- Neofetch displays information about your operating system, software and hardware in an aesthetic and visually pleasing way.
  • Jet Brains Mono- Free and open source typeface designed for developers, I downloaded the font from the JetBrains website and installed it in Windows.
  • Atom One Dark I really like the Atom One dark theme (I also use the same theme in VSCode), so I’ve added that as a new colour scheme in my setting.json file

• Linux command line on windows or macOS (WSL)

  • Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) has really changed the game when it comes to open source development on Windows, I have benefitted from years of developer workflow improvements and enhancements at the command line but now I can bring those into Windows.

  • Lets Talk About WSL2 now?

    • It gives me he ability to run Linux containers, benefiting from the improved filesystem performance, from within Windows Isn't that pleasant to hear?, Well yes!

  • oh-my-zsh - I use zsh as my preferred shell and oh my zsh to help manage my zsh configuration

    • oh-my-zsh plugins
      • git - This comes bundled as part of the oh-my-zsh install. No need to install it then!
      • zsh-syntax-highlighting- I use this plugin to enable highlighting of commands whilst they are typed at the command line
      • zsh-autosuggestions - As the name suggests, provides me type completions based on my previous command execution history

  • Spaceship ZSH - It makes my prompt looks nice and provides extensions that helps improve my workflow

Installation

Enable WSL 2

1 . Open PowerShell as Administrator and run: dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

• Note : Check requirements before running WSL 2

2 . You have to enable virtual machine feature: dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

Restart your computer.

3 . Download and install the Linux kernel update package.

4 . If you want to use WSL 2 you should set it as default before intstalling: wsl --set-default-version 2

• Note : If you are not able to install WSL with this instructions go have a look at the official Microsoft docs on how to install WSL.

5 . Install Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

• I am installing Ubuntu 20.04, you can go on store and select your favorite Linux distribution.

• Install Ubuntu 20.04 by opening PowerShell and run:

  curl.exe -L -o ubuntu-2004.appx https://aka.ms/wslubuntu2004 Add-AppxPackage .\ubuntu-2004.appx

• After installation launch the Ubuntu 20.04 LTS terminal. After a short while you will be prompted to enter a username and a password. This user will be your default user for the distribution and is considered the Linux administrator with the ability to run sudo commands.

  • Make sure everything is up to date: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y