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I find terminal emulators on Linux to be woefully inadequate after getting used to iTerm2 on OS X. Can anyone recommend a Linux terminal emulator that even come

I find terminal emulators on Linux to be woefully inadequate after getting used to iTerm2 on OS X. Can anyone recommend a Linux terminal emulator that even comes close in terms of features and performance?

pmoriarty 10y ago
What features do you need in iTerm2 that you find lacking in the Linux terminal emulators you've tried?
- donatj 10y ago
  I second this out of true curiosity. I have tried and never found any love in my heart for iTerm2. It just feels clunky and bloated to me.
  - wruza 10y ago
    Last time I asked, someone said: "many features, but I like cmd-click to open path". After reading [1] I see that all it does is loading hipster-oriented "features" into your brain. Almost every feature is useless if you're doing any amount of actual work with decent cli tools. But for playing a hacker it is pretty cool. [1] https://www.iterm2.com/features.html https://www.iterm2.com/features.html
    - kedean 10y ago
      There's nothing wrong with features that give you access to the wider operating system. Like it or not, the modern operating system is more than just terminals and CLI tools, and there's no reason to be condescending to those who don't live exclusively in the terminal. A large part of what makes iTerm2 popular is how well it works in tandem with MacOS. Things like cmd+click to open (useful because you can use it on data that was spat out from a previous command invocation), paste filtering, and the fantastic built-in multiplexer/tabbing system. That said, most of what makes MacOS users like iTerm2 just wouldn't be as useful on any other operating system, because its so tightly coupled to the wider OS.
      - wruza 10y ago
        I do not think that it does work well with OSX. Autocompletion is on <⌘-;> (spell check) instead of <Esc>, and it works strangely: "$ ls trunk/<cmd-;>" suggests other directories around trunk (like tags and branches), when it should list trunk's contents. Cmd-click on path cannot go to partial path. It also cannot "open in app", only in default app (^cmd-click doesn't help). I always can select or triple-click and "$ open [-a ...] <cmd-v><cr>" to do that; or stop being fool and just type "open ." and do whatever I need right in Finder. Colored tab's colors blend to barely visible when deactivated. Changing color themes in settings does nothing at all. I'm not arguing that features aren't needed. I'm arguing the hyping of little-to-no working "features" that it tries to sell in place of REAL tools and .files that were there for decades.
    - pmoriarty 10y ago
      I don't know if the "cmd-click to open path" is a feature that's already built in to any Linux terminal (though I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was, considering how many terminals Linux has). You can probably do something like it with urxvt's perl extensions. You could also just double-click to copy the path to the X primary selection and then use a keyboard macro to open the path in the primary selection in your file browser, or whatever.
      - steveklabnik 10y ago
        On my pretty stock debian system, my terminal in i3 does the cmd-click bit.
- itsadok 10y ago
  Not OP, but some cool features I haven't seen in Linux: - Quadruple-click smart selection - "Selection respects soft boundaries" for selecting within a tmux pane - "Rum coprocess" on keyboard shortcut, which allows doing stuff like http://brettterpstra.com/2014/11/14/safer-command-line-paste-in-iterm-2/ http://brettterpstra.com/2014/11/14/safer-command-line-paste... I just checked, and gnome-terminal doesn't even have split-pane. What do you guys use, anyway?
  - pmoriarty 10y ago
    Quadruple-click smart selection should be doable with urxt's perl extension feature. Selecting within a tmux pane: you got me on that one. I'm not aware of a terminal that does that, but again, it should be possible to do with urxvt's perl extension feature. Regarding the "safer command line paste", Linux can do the same with bracketed paste mode.[1] For splitting panes, I just use tmux, vim, or emacs. [1] - https://cirw.in/blog/bracketed-paste https://cirw.in/blog/bracketed-paste
ekns 10y ago
I've been happy with gnome-terminal :)
michaelmrose 10y ago
Lilyterm works well for me but I don't know what features you are looking for.
nine_k 10y ago
If you're looking for native tmux tabs, Terminator unstable has initial support, for instance. If you're looking for things like toolbelt, or built-in regexp highlighting, or other (arguably nice) bells and whistles, I suspect most of them would be provided by separate utilities. (Yes, it's a distant echo of the "Unix way".) Bookmarks in scrollback are neat, though, and cannot be easily added by a third party. I don't remember an implementation, though.
throwawayish 10y ago
Konsole?
microcolonel 10y ago
Performance? I can't think of a terminal emulator which performs worse than iTerm2 on any platform; other than maybe Cool Retro Term, but I don't think performance was much of a consideration there in the first place.
aairey 10y ago
I was always happy with gnome-terminal. But then someone recommended Terminator and haven't gone back since :) It feels like gnome-terminal on steroids. Love the multipane stuff.
hyperion2010 10y ago
rxvt-unicode (urxvt)?
Gonzih 10y ago
Terminology
sime2009 10y ago
I'm working on a new terminal which takes a few cues from iTerm2 and also adds other unique features. It is not up to production level quality like iTerm2 but you are more than welcome to try it out. Extraterm -> https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm The visual tour page explains some of the ideas present. https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm/blob/master/docs/tour.md https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm/blob/master/docs/t...

pmoriarty 10y ago

What features do you need in iTerm2 that you find lacking in the Linux terminal emulators you've tried?

donatj 10y ago
I second this out of true curiosity. I have tried and never found any love in my heart for iTerm2. It just feels clunky and bloated to me.
- wruza 10y ago
  Last time I asked, someone said: "many features, but I like cmd-click to open path". After reading [1] I see that all it does is loading hipster-oriented "features" into your brain. Almost every feature is useless if you're doing any amount of actual work with decent cli tools. But for playing a hacker it is pretty cool. [1] https://www.iterm2.com/features.html https://www.iterm2.com/features.html
  - kedean 10y ago
    There's nothing wrong with features that give you access to the wider operating system. Like it or not, the modern operating system is more than just terminals and CLI tools, and there's no reason to be condescending to those who don't live exclusively in the terminal. A large part of what makes iTerm2 popular is how well it works in tandem with MacOS. Things like cmd+click to open (useful because you can use it on data that was spat out from a previous command invocation), paste filtering, and the fantastic built-in multiplexer/tabbing system. That said, most of what makes MacOS users like iTerm2 just wouldn't be as useful on any other operating system, because its so tightly coupled to the wider OS.
    - wruza 10y ago
      I do not think that it does work well with OSX. Autocompletion is on <⌘-;> (spell check) instead of <Esc>, and it works strangely: "$ ls trunk/<cmd-;>" suggests other directories around trunk (like tags and branches), when it should list trunk's contents. Cmd-click on path cannot go to partial path. It also cannot "open in app", only in default app (^cmd-click doesn't help). I always can select or triple-click and "$ open [-a ...] <cmd-v><cr>" to do that; or stop being fool and just type "open ." and do whatever I need right in Finder. Colored tab's colors blend to barely visible when deactivated. Changing color themes in settings does nothing at all. I'm not arguing that features aren't needed. I'm arguing the hyping of little-to-no working "features" that it tries to sell in place of REAL tools and .files that were there for decades.
  - pmoriarty 10y ago
    I don't know if the "cmd-click to open path" is a feature that's already built in to any Linux terminal (though I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was, considering how many terminals Linux has). You can probably do something like it with urxvt's perl extensions. You could also just double-click to copy the path to the X primary selection and then use a keyboard macro to open the path in the primary selection in your file browser, or whatever.
    - steveklabnik 10y ago
      On my pretty stock debian system, my terminal in i3 does the cmd-click bit.
itsadok 10y ago
Not OP, but some cool features I haven't seen in Linux: - Quadruple-click smart selection - "Selection respects soft boundaries" for selecting within a tmux pane - "Rum coprocess" on keyboard shortcut, which allows doing stuff like http://brettterpstra.com/2014/11/14/safer-command-line-paste-in-iterm-2/ http://brettterpstra.com/2014/11/14/safer-command-line-paste... I just checked, and gnome-terminal doesn't even have split-pane. What do you guys use, anyway?
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  Quadruple-click smart selection should be doable with urxt's perl extension feature. Selecting within a tmux pane: you got me on that one. I'm not aware of a terminal that does that, but again, it should be possible to do with urxvt's perl extension feature. Regarding the "safer command line paste", Linux can do the same with bracketed paste mode.[1] For splitting panes, I just use tmux, vim, or emacs. [1] - https://cirw.in/blog/bracketed-paste https://cirw.in/blog/bracketed-paste

ekns 10y ago

I've been happy with gnome-terminal :)

michaelmrose 10y ago

Lilyterm works well for me but I don't know what features you are looking for.

nine_k 10y ago

If you're looking for native tmux tabs, Terminator unstable has initial support, for instance. If you're looking for things like toolbelt, or built-in regexp highlighting, or other (arguably nice) bells and whistles, I suspect most of them would be provided by separate utilities. (Yes, it's a distant echo of the "Unix way".) Bookmarks in scrollback are neat, though, and cannot be easily added by a third party. I don't remember an implementation, though.

throwawayish 10y ago

Konsole?

microcolonel 10y ago

Performance? I can't think of a terminal emulator which performs worse than iTerm2 on any platform; other than maybe Cool Retro Term, but I don't think performance was much of a consideration there in the first place.

aairey 10y ago

I was always happy with gnome-terminal. But then someone recommended Terminator and haven't gone back since :) It feels like gnome-terminal on steroids. Love the multipane stuff.

hyperion2010 10y ago

rxvt-unicode (urxvt)?

Gonzih 10y ago

Terminology

sime2009 10y ago

I'm working on a new terminal which takes a few cues from iTerm2 and also adds other unique features. It is not up to production level quality like iTerm2 but you are more than welcome to try it out. Extraterm -> https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm The visual tour page explains some of the ideas present. https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm/blob/master/docs/tour.md https://github.com/sedwards2009/extraterm/blob/master/docs/t...