How to Enable Syntax Highlighting and Autosuggestions in Bash (No sudo Required)

04 Mar, 2026

If you're stuck with Bash on a shared Linux system and don't have root access, you might think you're out of luck when it comes to quality-of-life features like syntax highlighting and fish-style autosuggestions. You're not. This guide walks through how to set up both using ble.sh entirely in your home directory.

What You'll Get

Syntax highlighting as you type commands
Grey ghost-text autosuggestions pulled from your history, accepted with the → right arrow key
No sudo required at any step

Step 1: Check if gawk is Available

ble.sh requires GNU Awk (gawk) to build. Check what's on your system:

which awk mawk gawk nawk
awk --version

If awk --version shows GNU Awk, you're good. If it shows something else (like mawk), you'll need to install gawk manually — see the next step.

Step 2: Install gawk Without sudo (if needed)

If gawk isn't available, build it from source into your home directory:

Notes: You may want to change to the latest version of gawk in the following command.

wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gawk/gawk-5.3.0.tar.gz
tar -xf gawk-5.3.0.tar.gz
cd gawk-5.3.0
./configure --prefix=$HOME/.local
make && make install

Then make sure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Verify it worked:

gawk --version  # should show GNU Awk

Step 3: Install ble.sh

Clone and build ble.sh into your home directory:

cd ~
git clone --recursive https://github.com/akinomyoga/ble.sh.git
make -C ble.sh install PREFIX=~/.local

Step 4: Enable It in ~/.bashrc

Add the following lines to your ~/.bashrc:

echo 'source ~/.local/share/blesh/ble.sh' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'bleopt complete_auto_history=1' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'bleopt complete_auto_complete=1' >> ~/.bashrc

Then reload your shell:

source ~/.bashrc

All Done

From now on, every Bash session will have:

Commands highlighted in colour as you type
Autosuggestions shown in grey based on your command history
Press → to accept a suggestion, or just keep typing to ignore it

Troubleshooting

gawk could not be found during make — You have mawk or another awk variant. Follow Step 2 to build gawk from source.

Suggestions not appearing — Make sure both bleopt lines are present in ~/.bashrc and that you've reloaded it with source ~/.bashrc.

Want an easier life? — Check if zsh is already installed on your system:

which zsh

If it returns a path, you can switch to it with no sudo required:

chsh -s $(which zsh)

Zsh has a much richer plugin ecosystem (zsh-autosuggestions, zsh-syntax-highlighting) and these features work out of the box with Oh My Zsh.