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Ask HN: Which Linux terminal emulator do you prefer and why?

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Re: Ask HN: Which Linux terminal emulator do you prefer and why?

#41

Post by zzo38computer »

I use xterm. (However, there are some problems with it such as the pieces of big Sigma cannot be displayed (I think because it uses Unicode for conversion; you cannot just use fonts with the specific encodings directly, which I would prefer it to do), and some other problems; but it also has some advantages such as using Xaw and using bitmap fonts.)

Maybe some time, I can write a better one, possibly. (One idea I have also is a kind of "secure universal escape", which might possibly use /proc file system if necessary, that would ensure that the state of the terminal is correct after the prompt is returned (and possibly also to check that the prompt is not being faked). The other idea is to not use Unicode.)

Re: Ask HN: Which Linux terminal emulator do you prefer and why?

#42

Post by qbasic_forever »

dzek69 wrote: post #32

BTW, a little off topic, but... I wish something like Windows Terminal or ConEmu was available for Linux. After Windows 10 supports will end I'm going to switch to Linux again and I wanna cry because Linux tools almost always are so feature-less, buggy, unfinished or ugly. ShareX, Everything, terminals mentioned above. With 7+ taskbar tweaker even taskbar is much more powerful than any desktop environment I tested :(

What feature of Windows Terminal are you missing? It's been ages since I've used it but I can't think of anything I haven't seen in Linux terminal emulators. Gnome Terminal is the closest IMHO as it has custom profiles and colorschemes that are similar to what I remember from Windows. Pixel shaders are the only thing I can think that you won't commonly find in Linux terminals, but there is cool-retro-term for that kind of stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Which Linux terminal emulator do you prefer and why?

#45

Post by nine_k »

cbsks wrote: post #18

Kitty is an amazing terminal if you are willing to spend some time to learn and customize it. Take a look at the screencast on its website, it is super powerful and will make your coworkers and friends jealous. https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/

Kitty and Alacritty miss one feature which is key to me: assigning a separate color to bold face.

I read a lot of output that only has bold face markup, like man pages or top output. They are way easier to read if bold face stands out more than, well, just thicker letter strokes.

So I'm stuck with xfce4-terminal.

Re: Ask HN: Which Linux terminal emulator do you prefer and why?

#46

Post by epakai »

urxvt. It's very fast. I do a non-scientific benchmark of 'time find ~'. After repeats I see: urxvt=3.86s, alacritty=4.25s, kitty=7.62s, xterm=14.04s. (That xterm time feels suspect, I remember it being faster)

Mostly it was an improvement over xterm. I setup runtime font size change, a perl script to open new terms in the same working directory, and scroll bar the way I like.

On my newer setup for wayland I settled on alacritty (kitty was a competitor, X terms were out because fractional scaling results in blurry fonts). Neither option has a scrollbar which sucks, but I was able to get similar feature parity to urxvt.

Re: Ask HN: Which Linux terminal emulator do you prefer and why?

#47

Post by gerdesj »

Terminal emulator.

When I boot my laptop or PC I get a graphical login (sddm) and a whizzy environment on login - KDE n that. I can hit CTRL-Fx and get a console, a terminal if you like. It does conform to some sort of standards but is it really an emulator? Emulating something implies a second rate experience and I don't think that applies here. My terminal is just fine.

Now is my terminal a good one? Well we might have to consider the shell too because that is a major part of the text based console experience. I use BASH. I know that other shells exist and they have adherents (often quite vocal!) I've tried FISH and loved it but it isn't BASH which is available nearly everywhere. zsh, ksh etc are not bash but they are well supported so adherents are well served and we are all happy.

So I run BASH in a konsole mostly. It's just something to run commands and get stuff done. I've tried funky extras that fiddled with git n that and changed the prompt and made my console life more productive. It doesn't really and simply slows it down.

I like my shells to be unimaginative but reliable and my consoles to be pretty staid too. I like a bit of colour but not much more.

Sorry, to answer your question: konsole.

Re: Ask HN: Which Linux terminal emulator do you prefer and why?

#49

Post by badsectoracula »

bediger4000 wrote: post #2

Vanilla xterm. It uses a lot less resources than any other emulator. Thomas Dickey keeps it updated. It has an unusual, but usable scroll bar. You can configure cut-n-paste to help you with command line work. You can change what a "word" is for cutting/copying to include /, ., *, so working with Unix file names is easier.

xterm too, not for any special reason than it seems to be highly compatible (well, AFAICT it is basically a de-facto standard for all X terminals), very responsive, opens instantly and has zero frills.

I mainly use Window Maker but whenever i use KDE (in other PCs mainly) i use konsole because it is just there.

TBH my requirements for a terminal are minimal - a generous scroll back history, decent responsiveness and the ability to configure the window to remove any unnecessary frills (scrollbar aside) and i'm fine.

Re: Ask HN: Which Linux terminal emulator do you prefer and why?

#50

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #42
dzek69 wrote: post #32

BTW, a little off topic, but... I wish something like Windows Terminal or ConEmu was available for Linux. After Windows 10 supports will end I'm going to switch to Linux again and I wanna cry because Linux tools almost always are so feature-less, buggy, unfinished or ugly. ShareX, Everything, terminals mentioned above. With 7+ taskbar tweaker even taskbar is much more powerful than any desktop environment I tested :(

What feature of Windows Terminal are you missing? It's been ages since I've used it but I can't think of anything I haven't seen in Linux terminal emulators. Gnome Terminal is the closest IMHO as it has custom profiles and colorschemes that are similar to what I remember from Windows. Pixel shaders are the only thing I can think that you won't commonly find in Linux terminals, but there is cool-retro-term for that ki…

Mame has a VT100 emulator and you can enable shaders with that if you want scanlines and pincushion distortion.
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