RedBear-OS/recipes/shells/zsh/README.md

Zsh on Redox

Production recipe for Zsh 5.9 on Red Bear OS / Redox.

Status

• Builds: yes
• Runtime: basic shell works; times builtin is a no-op stub
• Blockers: times() and getrusage() not yet in relibc

Patch Summary

File	Change	Reason
configure.ac	Remove getrusage from AC_CHECK_FUNCS	Avoids configure-time detection of missing function
Src/builtin.c	Stub bin_times()	times() unavailable in relibc
Src/Builtins/rlimits.c	Disable set_resinfo() / free_resinfo()	These depend on getrusage()

Configure Flags

• --disable-gdbm — avoid GNU dbm dependency
• --disable-pcre — avoid PCRE dependency
• --disable-cap — avoid POSIX capabilities dependency
• zsh_cv_sys_elf=no — skip ELF detection (not applicable on Redox)

Dependencies

• ncursesw — wide-character terminal library

Install Targets

Zsh uses non-standard install targets:

make install.bin install.modules install.fns DESTDIR="${COOKBOOK_STAGE}"

Configuration Files

The recipe installs Manjaro-inspired system-wide zsh configuration:

File	Purpose
/etc/zsh/zshenv	Environment variables for all zsh shells
/etc/zsh/zprofile	Login shell profile (sources /etc/profile for compatibility)
/etc/zsh/zshrc	Interactive shell config: history, completion, colors, prompt, aliases
/etc/skel/.zshrc	Template for new users
/etc/skel/.zprofile	Template for new users (login shell)

Features (Manjaro-style)

• Colored prompt: green for user, red for root, with hostname and working directory
• Right-side prompt: shows exit code on error
• Tab completion: with menu selection, approximate matching, and colorized listings
• History: shared across sessions, ignores duplicates and leading-space entries
• Aliases: ls, ll, la, grep, cp, mv, rm with color and safety flags
• Convenience: AUTO_CD, CORRECT, NO_BEEP
• Optional plugins: zsh-syntax-highlighting, zsh-autosuggestions (loaded if available)

Future Work

• Re-enable times builtin when relibc gains times() support
• Re-enable resource-limit info when relibc gains getrusage() support
• Evaluate enabling gdbm, pcre, or cap if those libraries are ported
• Package zsh-syntax-highlighting and zsh-autosuggestions plugins