Which terminal emulator do you use?

Linux@lemmy.ml – 170 points – 6 months ago

I've always just used konsole or gnome terminal. Never really looked into what else is available. Tried cool-retro-term the other day, but the novelty wore off pretty fast for me.

Curious to see if there's a terminal someone swears by and refuses to use anything else.

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I'm high AF and new to Linux, what is a terminal emulator?

So the “terminal” is the basic CLI that you use in the single-user, text-based mode. Terminal emulators are graphical programs that run in multi-user, graphics-based mode, and they hook into the terminal and allow you to access it inside graphical sessions. Some examples would be alacritty, kitty, urxvt, konsole, or terminator

Thanks for taking the time.

I've been using the literal terminal app like a caveman I guess... What do these weird apps give me over my regular terminal?

People mentioned tabs and stuff but like... I have tabs?

Every "terminal app" is a terminal emulator, because non-emulated terminals are physical pieces of hardware.

So you are already using a terminal emulator, I'd guess Gnome Terminal, and it's a fairly full featured modern terminal emulator (in my opinion at least).

Thanks I actually thought this was about emulators like the Tektronics Vt 4052 terminal emulator I used to use.

That's exactly what they are, but instead of connecting to a VAX at the other end of a modem they talk to a shell attached to a pseudo terminal device on the same machine.

Fun fact!

Teletypes predate "computers" and were used for efficiently transmitting and recording text.

Here is a purely mechanical teletype from the 1930s being used to interface with a modern Linux machine:

https://youtu.be/2XLZ4Z8LpEE?si=BEsTAz5kkYu9tIQB

This was a very cool video. Thank you for sharing!