I don't get the fixation people have with terminals. I don't think I've ever used one in Linux that made me think "you know, I need to install a better terminal emulator". So I just use what comes with my DE.
I am on EndeavourOS and install packages via the command line and on top of that I primarily use Neovim, so I spend a decent amount of time in the terminal
My counterpoint is terminator. The logger plugin saved my ass a few times, it remembers the commands I ran and what their output was so I don't have to.
I guess it depends on if you're willing to take advantage of the extra features, or just want to do as little CLI as possible
There are two kinds of powerusers, and they DO NOT understand each other one bit.
The first, like you, just wants to get shit done and want to avoid the friction of choosing/installing/configuring their tools. GNOME, Chromium, and VSCode will do just fine.
The second, like me, wants to get shit done as well, but has a strong need for a very specific workflow. I'll spend half an hour to get a toolchain working on nvim instead of using a pre-baked VSCode plugin. Not because VSCode is bad, but because I have a very (!) specific workflow and associated muscle memory and anything else distracts and unsettles me.
Some of the best engineers I know fall into either category, neither way is superior it's just how brains are wired.
Anyway I use Kitty because it allows me to split tabs into windows (not windows into tabs! ew!), has low latency with high throughput thanks to GPU rendering, and a low memory footprint.
Oh that made a ton of sense! I don't customize as much because I'm a completionist and would waste a whole week on it and not even change much from defaults anyway.
I also checked kitty and terminator and I can see the appeal. I'm used to opening separate windows and tile them using window manager commands to get a similar effect.
Thanks for your response, that was an eye opener!
Alacritty is really nice and easy to configure, and isn't "tied" to any desktop environment, like Konsole is. Kitty is really cool for its implementation of image display. Foot is a Wayland-native alternative that is also really nice to use.
+1 for kitty. Embedded images for Ranger is super cool. The only downside is i’ve been getting rendering issues for a couple seconds after waking up from suspend but that’s probably a configuration issue on my end
Call me boring, but I really like the Gnome terminal.
There was one terminal that blew my mind in terms of speed and features, and it was Kitty: it's properly fast and it's packed with fantastic features, such as the ability to display images and play videos in the terminal itself.
However, I uninstalled it because it did one thing that really, REALLY rubbed me the wrong way: by default, it phones home to find updates.
Any software that phones home behind my back, even with good intentions, and particularly something as essential as a terminal in which you type all sorts of passwords, gets a hard pass from me. But if you don't mind, I highly recommend it.
by default, it phones home to find updates.
Do you have a source for that? I just did a rough check using nethogs (on my Arch box) and I didn't see any connections originating from kitty.
I also found this comment from the author mentioning that he wasn't a fan of automatic updates (which implied it wasn't a feature).
and no I dont want to do automatic updates, am not a fan of those. If and when you have an issue or want to try new functionality, its just a simple command to update it.
I switched from Alacritty to Wezterm because I wanted ligature support and it's also written in Rust. I really like it, though it had some issues with Wayland so I had to install a -git package but it's fixed now. It also has a bunch of features I don't use so I can't really talk about those. I you don't care about ligatures and the features, use Alacritty, it's really good.
Wez is actually pretty awesome too
I like wezterm a lot but lately have not been impressed with some breaking changes on the main branch. I know its basically a nightly release, but that's the recommended way to install according to their website. The devs acknowledged it, and recommended using a tiling manager as the fix.
Foot but its limited for the averaged user. While it does support most standards its got no ui, configuration is done through a text editor and foots config file.
Personally I like it. Light weight and robust
Kitty is a great choice But I also enjoyed konsole for its SSH Alias's
I am a boring person and use what my DE gives me by default. Konsole is very good and I also use Yakuake a lot but I will also take a closer look at Kitty.
Kitty, hands down. GPU accelerated; native image protocol implemented by ranger, neofetch, and more; incredibly customizable; multiplexing with multiple windows and tabs; ligature support; and much more
If anybody has any questions about it, swing on over to Kitty Terminal Emulator [!kittyterimal@midwest.social]
I’ve been really happy with Kitty.
Honestly, Konsole is fantastic. On Gnome I use Blackbox, on Sway I use Foot, but if you’re on KDE you don’t really get better than Konsole.
Alacritty and Kitty are both terminals I used to use back when I was on i3wm, they’re perfectly usable, but I don’t think the average user will gain any tangible benefit from replacing Konsole.
I’ve been using Terminator for years primarily because it’s portable. It predates a lot of the portable terminals in vogue right now. I haven’t really noticed a difference in using any of the newer ones so I haven’t switched. There’s some endowment effect there and sunk cost dotfiles.
If there’s a good comparison someone knows about that I should scope to understand what I’m missing I’m always curious!
I have been using https://apps.kde.org/yakuake/ for years. Having the command line available with a simple key combo while not cluttering up any task manager is great.
konsole is fast and reliableI like it
Konsole kause i'm a kde konformist... kant kontrol it.
Kitty
xfce4-terminal. Runs fine without xfce4.
KDE user so I use Konsole. It's great.
I've used GNOME's terminal, Konsole, kitty, st, cool-retro-term, Alacritty, foot, and Wezterm.
The things I want from a terminal emulator are:
Wezterm is afaik the only one with all of those.
Konsole is actually a pretty good terminal emulator, its big downside is that it looks horribly out-of-place in anything other than Plasma. So as long as you stay on Plasma, Konsole is a good choice. If you ever move to a WM or something, I recommend foot or Wezterm.
Alacritty has some degree of customisability, Konsole has more, but either way it's nothing when compared to Wezterm. It is really fast though!
The thing that skews the duel in favour of Konsole for me is the ligature support. I use neovim for programming and we all know code ligatures are a godsend, so ligature support in the terminal is very much a thing that I want.
I just switched to wezterm and I’m really liking it so far. Takes some time to setup and tweak, but you can do almost anything. Works “everywhere“ too.
The only thing I’m missing so far is broadcast input.
Kitty but only if you don't mind configuring everything in a config file. It has GPU acceleration so it will be faster than Konsole when showing 300+ lines of output on older hardware. Alacritty had a lot of issues on my installations so can't recommend it
I'm just curious, when do I have to care about virtual terminal speed? When do you need that GPU acceleration?
Konsole is goated, legit really good.
Second to it would be Kitty in my opinion
Kitty if you have a GPU and run programs that have a lot of output (build scripts and emerge). It uses the GPU for better performance.
kitty is great, for me it's similar to mpv: it does what it's supposed to do, no fluff. Just straight up performance.
I discovered wezterm a few weeks ago and it is really neat, works even on windows. So I can share config files between my private and my work machine. It is kinda similar to alacritty but I don’t like how the developers of alacritty talk to people on GitHub, like they are really arrogant.
since you seem to consider alacritty, which is pretty minimal in features, maybe give foot a shot as well. i find it fits best into tiling wm land (sway, river, etc.) so might not be your cup of tea...
urxvt is the only terminal I'll use. Every time I try something else I come back to it because of some basic thing that's not right - usually font rendering which urxvt is one of the few that works well with scalable fonts. It's fast and simple and does everything I need without any bloated stuff I'll never use.
Konsole is excellent. Wezterm is even better, and can pretty much do everything, everywhere.
There's no need to bother with the others if you like either of these.
I like Prompt.
I use Silverblue and a lot of Distrobox containers, which is why I enjoy it that much.
I discovered it through Bazzite.
Before that, I used Gnome Console or Black Box, because they're based on Libadwaita, good looking and very simple, which is enough for my needs.
TLDR: try them out, see what you like. It's a relatively easy switch-out, it's not like you're debating different web stacks.
I used zutty for awhile. It was fine and lightweight, but broke when I switched back from the nvidia drivers to nouveau (it's an older laptop that has no reason to milk every last bit of performance out of its gpu).
Now I'm using Alacritty. I like that I can configure it in a .yml file instead of needing to use my mouse, I like that it's written in Rust, I like that I got it to do transparency within minutes. I love the vi mode.
On my daily driver I use Terminator. I like the multiplexing/tabs/panes, the infinite scrollback when needed, and the logger plugin when needed. I might see if I can get it to do transparency tomorrow.
xterm has always treated me well too. Just a good, solid choice.
I guess my two biggest pieces of advice re: terminal emulators are
use tmux, it's extremely convenient once you get the hang of it. It's like any terminal-based text editor: hard to learn, but such a pleasure to use once you've got it down. Why waste time moving over to grab your mouse when you could just hit 2-3 keys?
configure the hell out of whatever you pick. It doesn't feel comfortable, like it's your command line—in the same way that it's your bed, or your chair, or your computer—until you've configured it. After you do, it just feels comfortable. Change the color scheme to all custom colors, change the font, change the shell, change the sounds, change the cursor blink rate, disable cursor, disable animations, disable text output, enable scrollback, enable logging, enable transparency, enable autopilot, adjust the retro encabulator, fasten your seatbelts, eat your veggies, stay in school.
use transparency. There's just something so pleasant about something more than a solid color background.
If you can't give evidence, it's not nice to spread rumours
I can't recommend kitty enough it's really great!
I've been using Alacritty (on Wayland) for the past few years. I like it's customizability. My only real complaint is that there are times when I really miss having scrollbars. After reading this thread I'll have to give kitty a try. I think I tried it a couple if years ago and was not impressed, but maybe it has gotten a lot better since then.
Oh, I’m missing out on the latest “xyz dev is a jerk” drama again? Oh well …
I use Kitty, it’s a great terminal emulator that is easily extendable and gives me all the features I like.
I use Tilix, mostly because I'm used to it. I should probably upgrade to the plethora of new GTK4 terminal emulators, but I just can't be bothered. Plus none of them support tiling.
It all depends by what you need it for.
I remember the first years I approached Linux I wanted to try every bit of software and that made me waste a lot of time and energy because I hadn't already learned to ask myself that question.
If you just need a terminal to run updates and basic commands, stick with what your distro is shipped with. It will be better integrated and well tested and will save you a lot of time.
If you need something in specific instead, you'll be able to find the software with a feature set that will match all your needs.
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