Personalize your terminal!

How the terminal looks can describe how the owner works. So, I personalized how I use my terminal. Here is how I did it:

• Put Git branch name as part of PS1. Sometimes you forget which branch you working on, this will help you recheck the active branch without writing any syntax. I set the PS1 so it looks like this:

[username@hostname workingDirectory (activeBranchName)]$

• Create aliases to start, check status, and end services. Starting services, checking status, or ending a service can be quite a hassle. So instead of writing complete syntax like this:

sudo service mysql start
sudo service mysql status
sudo service mysql stop

you can simplify your life with a writing alias like this:

mysqlstart
mysqlstat
mysqlstop

• Another hassle thing todo is ssh to servers. Just how many ssh target you need to remember? Not to mention ssh command can be quite long with all the options. Use alias to access ssh too, so we don’t write ssh like this:

ssh -i ~/theCertificate.pem -p 1234 username@devServer

but simplified like this:

devserver

• The last one is an alias to get to a specific directory. I am using WSL, so the windows users directory are a bit deep to go, I usually need to go here by using this syntax:

cd /mnt/c/Users/USER/Downloads

with an alias, I can go only with this syntax:

wdownload

Alias help me to use time efficiently.