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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Am I the only one that’s fine with whatever the OS provides out of the box? Like, as long as I can turn the bell off and change the font, I’m chillin, and I have yet to run into a terminal that doesn’t provide those options.
Curious to hear what drives people to seek out other options (besides tiling, that I understand, I’m a tabs guy myself tho)
Wen I first installed Linux I was like “I need the best fancy termanal” and wastes some time only not be satisfied with the results and installing tons of bloat. Now I always just use what I get by default from the distro I happen to be on 😂 I don’t even know what I want
In my case it's resource consumption, efficiency the impact with the windows manager I use, how much is keyboard controllable. It seems strange to me that a linux user uses the default applications. The beauty of linux is the huge variety and the ability to customize. If you use allova ready-made things, a mac or windows is fine too
I don't know I never felt the need to customize the terminal. I just like what it comes with. It feels wrong to change that. Black background and colored text is fine. The rest of the OS though damn it's like a fucking birthday party! Nothing's at default ffs
In the past I have found myself working with laptops with few resources and small screen (eeepc). Every pixel gained was a big win, and finding equivalent lightweight, high-performance applications could make all the difference. Eventually I found the optimal solution with i3 as windows manager and alacritty was the best terminal to use together (and zsh). Since then even though I have no real need I have continued to use this approach. And in the end being careful about pc resource consumption is also an ethical choice, if the pc consumes less power it is a gain for the environment.
It seems strange to me that a linux user uses the default applications
I sorta get what you’re saying, but rather than just pick any random distro and handpick every application myself, I put effort into finding a distro which has the most default apps that I’m happy with. I use KDE Neon because I like Dolphin, Konsole, Konqueror, and the pre-installed version of VLC; however, I DON’T use the default email client, text editor, etc.
There is no one-size-fits-all, but for fits most, you're looking at KDE's Konsole or GNOME's new Terminal (formerly Ptyxis). Everything else is going to be niche, with special use cases. What are your specific needs?
What's wrong with kitty?
I've been using kitty for some time didn't had any issues, and multiplexing is useful.
PS: i used tmux for many years, and still use on headless
I personally don't use Kitty because, for me, it's much slower to open compared to Alacritty. :)
The one with your distro shipped with
If they care about terminal emulators, it's unlikely their distro came with one preinstalled.
Konsole is awesome and has great integration with Plasma ofc. I'm surprised to see it barely mentioned.
Alacritty. Alacritty. Alacritty. And did I mention Alacritty? (I'm just counting how many I have open atm)
For me: Wezterm. It does pretty much everything. I don't think Alacritty/Kitty etc. offer anything over it for my usage, and the developer is a pleasure to engage with.
Second place is Konsole -- it does a lot, is easy to configure, and obviously integrates nicely with KDE apps.
Honorable mention is Extraterm, which has been working on cool features for a long time, and is now Qt based.
+1 for Wezterm, it also had image support that Alacritty didn't have, which I needed for Yazi to work.
I've heard good things about Warp too but Wezterm is where I'll be for now.
Depends on what you need actually. I was doing fine with urxvt on Xorg, so foot is a perfect alternative for me on Wayland.
Wezterm is my primary. Love the built-in domain/sshmux features, especially for work. The LUA config rocks, sky is the limit. Highly portable when using something like Chezmoi or YADM.
That said, it's not always the most performant, especially with certain TUIs. I've been running my NVim workspace in Kitty lately just to avoid the minor UI lag (primarily with lazygit). Not a fan of Kitty (or its dev) otherwise, but it serves its purpose.
If Wezterm ever gets optimized, it'll be the GOAT for me.
Ghostty also sounds like it's got potential, but haven't gotten my invite yet. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Tilda because you can roll it down from the top of your screen with one key press.
Tilda is barely maintained anymore, you can get Tilix that has the same quake like feature. You can also add the quake terminal extension to your favorite alternative if you use gnome.
Is it better than yaquake? I'm genuinely curious.
I use whatever with zsh and oh my zsh
Foot with tmux is my goto.
Definitely a favourite. Both. No necessarily at the same time 🙂
Running Kitty the past year and a bit and really like it. Used to run into weird laggy issues with other terminal emulators, but Kitty runs like a beast for me.
I usually just get by with Alacritty and Zellij, pairs pretty well together.
I don't know if it's the best, but kitty + zsh has been my daily driver for many years.
Just switched from Alacritty, kitty+zsh rocks. Feels faster than alacritty, and the tutorialization of the default config is great. And it's wildly configurable.
foot for me
Switched from kitty to foot, I like it.
Foot because it's sway default. It's also configurable, has shortcuts and sixel support.
I'm somewhere between Kitty and Ptyxis.
Ptyxis is default on Bluefin, which I'm on now.
Recommend. Really nice container integration with distrobox.
st on Xorg and foot on Wayland
I use the one that comes with my DE, but if I am using a WM I use kitty
Tilix is great, complete for my needs.
Cosmic term is nice. Still just alpha, so there are rough edges though.
I see is a alacritty fork. what does it have more?
Splits, ligatures tabs and more
ghostty looks promising, but it's in "closed beta" for now. When it's released, it will be public and open source. :)
Alacrity or foot (foot has less features but it's faster)
Foot is the best
I run multiple terminal apps. I thought I would try a few, and I never deleted any of them.
I've been using xterm, urxvt, and st. Also tested alacrity, kitty, and wezterm. Your shell also plays a critical role in your terminal usage (but I won't deviate here). For my use-case, the latter are overkill so I stayed with st. The only missing feature for me was image support even though I use it sporadically. To cover that I use a script that relies on ueberzug or ucollage if I need to browse folders.
I've wrote a small post about ucollage if you're interested.
all of the fancy features that other terminals provide, I get with Tmux, so any emulator for me. I like transparent themes and that's easy to set up in Alacritty, so that's what I usually get
I consider st a great choice when using i3 or dwm. Customizing it takes time, but RAM usage is what I usually check and in case of st it is comically small.
Not a new project, but I feel is often overlooked: Sakura. I’ve fallen back to it repeatedly over the years. It is lightweight, opinionated but sane. Not as brutalist as st. I combo it with Tmux using powerline with little tweaking.
It uses standard libraries and stays out of the way.