Powerline Install and Setup for Ubuntu Bash on Windows

Intro

I am currently using a Windows 10 laptop as my main OS. IMHO Microsoft has really turned it around as a company in recent years and I no longer think of them as M$ Virus Corp!! I still live in a terminal session for a lot of my day and I am not ready give up on Bash just yet. The ability to run Bash on Windows was one of the reasons I was willing to move back to Windows as my primary laptop OS.

In this post I will run through setting up the Powerline status plugin for Bash on Windows. This post assumes you already have Ubuntu for Windows 10 app installed. For instruction on how to do that check out the documentation here.

The following software versions were used / installed in this post.

Microsoft Windows 10 - 1809
Ubuntu for Windows - 1804
Powerline - 2.7

Update Ubuntu

If you have just installed the Ubuntu app, perform an update.

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sudo apt update -y && sudo apt upgrade -y

Dependencies

Powerline requires patched fonts to correctly display icons, symbols and nice text.

Download the patched font from here
Extract the files and browse to the extracted directory
Find a file named install.ps1
Run the file in Powershell to install the fonts into the system

Install and update Python PIP

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sudo apt install -y python3-pip

sudo pip3 install -U pip

Installation

Install Powerline.

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sudo pip3 install powerline-status

Configuration

Find the install location for powerline.

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pip3 show powerline-status

# output

Name: powerline-status
Version: 2.7
Summary: The ultimate statusline/prompt utility.
Home-page: https://github.com/powerline/powerline
Author: Kim Silkebaekken
Author-email: [email protected]
License: MIT
Location: /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages
Requires:
Required-by:

From the output above you can see Powerline is installed in the /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages directory.

Add the following configuration to your ~/.bashrc file.

bash

PY3_REPO_ROOT=/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages

powerline-daemon -q
POWERLINE_BASH_CONTINUATION=1
POWERLINE_BASH_SELECT=1
source $PY3_REPO_ROOT/powerline/bindings/bash/powerline.sh

Source your ~/.bashrc file.

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source ~/.bashrc

At this point Powerline is installed and setup, but the symbols will be all messed up and you will need to select one of the patched fonts that where installed earlier.

In the Ubuntu app follow the below sequence to change the font.

Select the Ubuntu icon > Properties
Select the Font tab
Choose one of the Powerline fonts

Customise Powerline Display

Powerline is highly customisable, configs to alter the appearance are stored in the ~/.config/powerline/themes/shell/default.json file. This is my custom powerline config file.

json

{
  "segments": {
    "above": [
      {
        "left": [
          {
            "function": "powerline.segments.shell.mode"
          },
          {
            "function": "powerline.segments.common.net.hostname",
            "priority": 10
          },
          {
            "function": "powerline.segments.common.env.user",
            "priority": 30
          },
          {
            "function": "powerline.segments.common.env.virtualenv",
            "priority": 50
          },
          {
            "function": "powerline.segments.shell.cwd",
            "priority": 10,
            "args": {
              "use_path_separator": true
            }
          },
          {
            "function": "powerline.segments.common.time.date"
          },
          {
            "function": "powerline.segments.common.time.date",
            "name": "time",
            "args": {
              "format": "%H:%M:%S %A",
              "istime": true
            }
          },
          {
            "function": "powerline.segments.common.vcs.branch",
            "priority": 40
          },
          {
            "function": "powerline.segments.shell.jobnum",
            "priority": 20
          }
        ],
        "right": [
        ]
      },
      {
      }
    ],
    "left": [
      {
        "function": "powerline.segments.shell.mode"
      },
      {
        "function": "powerline.segments.common.time.date",
        "args": {
          "format": "$"
        }
      }
    ],
    "right": [
    ]
  }
}

VIM Bindings

To use the VIM bindings add the following config to your ~/.vimrc file.

bash

set rtp+=/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/powerline/bindings/vim
set laststatus=2
set t_Co=256

TMUX Bindings

To use the TMUX bindings add the following config to your ~/.tmux.conf file.

bash

source "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/powerline/bindings/tmux/powerline.conf"

Outro

Having the option to run Bash on Windows is a very nice feature. I really like the aesthetics of the Powerline plugin so I am happy to be able to install then on the Ubuntu Bash app.