5 ms·

I rarely use anything new because my work environment is holy, but I tried Kitty because it had a Unicode menu built-in. I like to send unicode smileys to frien

I rarely use anything new because my work environment is holy, but I tried Kitty because it had a Unicode menu built-in. I like to send unicode smileys to friends on IRC. :) Anyways here are my impressions after 1 month. 1. You have to transfer terminfo to all ssh servers because the kitty term does not exist there. 2. By default mouse selection with double click + drag to select multiple lines is not normal. I believe this could be fixed but I haven't figured out how yet. (I could not re-create this right now, maybe it was fixed in some recent upgrade) 3. Unlike gnome-terminal (my old default) it actually opens up to fullscreen if you used it in fullscreen mode last. 4. Unlike gnome-terminal I could immediately figure out how to make it open up a few default tabs like a session on start up. 5. Its CLI tools don't accept the same arguments when defining a session, as when using them outside of the session definition. This was barely documented. Overall the impression is good because I'm still using it. I rarely use anything new this long if it has issues affecting my workflow.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
flatiron 6y ago
1) kitty +kitten ssh myserver That solves that.
- hoistbypetard 6y ago
  As much as I like kitty, that shortcut is the only reason I've continued to use it for the past 18 months. Needing to manually fix it every time I connect to a new VM would've otherwise killed the appeal for me. `+kitten ssh` solves it nicely.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  FWIW that doesn't copy user capabilities; for that use: infocmp -x xterm-kitty | ssh myserver tic -x -o \~/.terminfo /dev/stdin
  - memco 6y ago
    Could you explain this a bit more? I'm not sure what `ssh myserver tic -x -o \~/.terminfo /dev/stdin` is trying to do nor that it's correct as you typed it. Should `tic` be `-tic`?
    - aidenn0 6y ago
      tic is the TermInfo Compiler The command on the left side of the pipe dumps the terminfo for "xterm-kitty" to stdout The command on the right side launches ssh to "myserver" and executes tic to compile from stdin and output to the ~/.terminfo directory (which nurses/terminfo will search by default). So basically it takes a local terminfo entry and copies it to the user-local terminfo path on the remote host. The command will work for any other terminal too; just replace xterm-kitty with whichever entry you'd like copied.
      - memco 6y ago
        Thanks!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- francislavoie 6y ago
  I've found that doing TERM=xterm-256color works better for me because of default debian bashrc on remote servers.
- staz 6y ago
  it seems to break on sudo. Haven't found a fix for that yet
  - francislavoie 6y ago
    I just set up this alias: alias ssh='TERM="xterm-256color" ssh' Generally works just fine for me. I tried the kitten approach but I had some issues as well.
    - staz 6y ago
      thanks it helps
- thedanbob 6y ago
  I wish I had known about this a year ago. A whole lot less to type than “mkdir -p ~/.terminfo/x ^D scp /usr/share/terminfo/xterm-kitty user@server:~/.terminfo/x/“
flyinghamster 6y ago
> You have to transfer terminfo to all ssh servers because the kitty term does not exist there. Ouch, that's a dealbreaker. I remember having to set up my own termcap/terminfo entries decades ago, when 1200 bps was fast and I had few viable choices for terminal emulators, and all of them had their quirks. Hard pass.
- kanox 6y ago
  You can work around that: > echo "term xterm-256color" >> ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf Documentation advises against it, but what do they know? https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/conf.html#opt-kitty.term https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/conf.html#opt-kitty.term
Wicher 6y ago
Your distro may carry a terminfo package for kitty in its main repo. On Gentoo it's x11-terms/kitty-terminfo . On Ubuntu it's kitty-terminfo . You may want to add it to your default installations of the machines you ssh into, and for machines where you can't do that, there's 'kitty +kitten ssh' as others have already pointed out.
- JdeBP 6y ago
  It's in Dickey terminfo, too, and has been since October 2018. * https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#tic-kitty https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#tic-ki... * https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#t20181027 https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#t20181... Goyal kitty isn't actually XTerm at all, of course, and the vanilla terminfo naming system comprises model names with suffixes. So only actual XTerm should have the prefix "xterm". In vanilla terminfo, kitty's terminal type is thus "kitty", with suffixes such as "-direct". The PuTTY fork KiTTY, in contrast, corresponds with terminal types in the "putty-" family. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22683277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22683277 * https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#tic-putty https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#tic-pu...
sime2009 6y ago
> You have to transfer terminfo to all ssh servers because the kitty term does not exist there. terminfo made sense decades ago when most people were connecting to 1 big centralised mainframe from a mix of random terminals. Now we have people using one (software) terminal to connect to many servers big and small. Requiring terminfo to be updated on the remote side is just nuts. Kitty should just identify as xterm like every other terminal written in the last 20 years.
- virgoerns 6y ago
  > Kitty should just identify as xterm like every other terminal written in the last 20 years. This is not my experience at all. I'd say most of terminals, including modern ones, have unique terminfos and work miserably when it's not installed. Examples include ST, kitty, alacritty. On top of that we have terminal multiplexers like tmux and screen which provide their unique terminfos as well.
  - sime2009 6y ago
    Then our experience diffs greatly. I can't remember the last time I saw a $TERM which wasn't 'xterm' or 'xterm-256color'.
    - mrighele 6y ago
      I use rxvt-unicode which sets $TERM to "rxvt-unicode-256color," which is not recognized by a number of server to which I have to connect to from time to time.
      - JdeBP 6y ago
        There's a whole story about that, part of which is that at the time terminfo had to cater for old systems where there's a limit on the length of a terminal type name. But the same applies as for a missing kitty terminfo entry. The terminfo database is designed so that one can copy records around, and one can put them in a directory in one's home directory if one does not have administrative access to update the system database. Debian systems have had an rxvt-unicode-256color entry for approaching 10 years, now. FreeBSD for about the same. * https://sources.debian.org/src/ncurses/5.9-10/debian/rxvt-unicode.ti/ https://sources.debian.org/src/ncurses/5.9-10/debian/rxvt-un... * https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/share/termcap/termcap?r1=211066&r2=218844 https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/share/termcap/termcap?r...
staz 6y ago
> 2. By default mouse selection with double click + drag to select multiple lines is not normal. I believe this could be fixed but I haven't figured out how yet. (I could not re-create this right now, maybe it was fixed in some recent upgrade) double click do word selection, triple click do line selection , don't know if this is configurable

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

flatiron 6y ago

1) kitty +kitten ssh myserver That solves that.

hoistbypetard 6y ago
As much as I like kitty, that shortcut is the only reason I've continued to use it for the past 18 months. Needing to manually fix it every time I connect to a new VM would've otherwise killed the appeal for me. `+kitten ssh` solves it nicely.
aidenn0 6y ago
FWIW that doesn't copy user capabilities; for that use: infocmp -x xterm-kitty | ssh myserver tic -x -o \~/.terminfo /dev/stdin
- memco 6y ago
  Could you explain this a bit more? I'm not sure what `ssh myserver tic -x -o \~/.terminfo /dev/stdin` is trying to do nor that it's correct as you typed it. Should `tic` be `-tic`?
  - aidenn0 6y ago
    tic is the TermInfo Compiler The command on the left side of the pipe dumps the terminfo for "xterm-kitty" to stdout The command on the right side launches ssh to "myserver" and executes tic to compile from stdin and output to the ~/.terminfo directory (which nurses/terminfo will search by default). So basically it takes a local terminfo entry and copies it to the user-local terminfo path on the remote host. The command will work for any other terminal too; just replace xterm-kitty with whichever entry you'd like copied.
    - memco 6y ago
      Thanks!
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
francislavoie 6y ago
I've found that doing TERM=xterm-256color works better for me because of default debian bashrc on remote servers.
staz 6y ago
it seems to break on sudo. Haven't found a fix for that yet
- francislavoie 6y ago
  I just set up this alias: alias ssh='TERM="xterm-256color" ssh' Generally works just fine for me. I tried the kitten approach but I had some issues as well.
  - staz 6y ago
    thanks it helps
thedanbob 6y ago
I wish I had known about this a year ago. A whole lot less to type than “mkdir -p ~/.terminfo/x ^D scp /usr/share/terminfo/xterm-kitty user@server:~/.terminfo/x/“

flyinghamster 6y ago

> You have to transfer terminfo to all ssh servers because the kitty term does not exist there. Ouch, that's a dealbreaker. I remember having to set up my own termcap/terminfo entries decades ago, when 1200 bps was fast and I had few viable choices for terminal emulators, and all of them had their quirks. Hard pass.

kanox 6y ago
You can work around that: > echo "term xterm-256color" >> ~/.config/kitty/kitty.conf Documentation advises against it, but what do they know? https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/conf.html#opt-kitty.term https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/conf.html#opt-kitty.term

Wicher 6y ago

Your distro may carry a terminfo package for kitty in its main repo. On Gentoo it's x11-terms/kitty-terminfo . On Ubuntu it's kitty-terminfo . You may want to add it to your default installations of the machines you ssh into, and for machines where you can't do that, there's 'kitty +kitten ssh' as others have already pointed out.

JdeBP 6y ago
It's in Dickey terminfo, too, and has been since October 2018. * https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#tic-kitty https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#tic-ki... * https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#t20181027 https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#t20181... Goyal kitty isn't actually XTerm at all, of course, and the vanilla terminfo naming system comprises model names with suffixes. So only actual XTerm should have the prefix "xterm". In vanilla terminfo, kitty's terminal type is thus "kitty", with suffixes such as "-direct". The PuTTY fork KiTTY, in contrast, corresponds with terminal types in the "putty-" family. * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22683277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22683277 * https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#tic-putty https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/terminfo.ti.html#tic-pu...

sime2009 6y ago

> You have to transfer terminfo to all ssh servers because the kitty term does not exist there. terminfo made sense decades ago when most people were connecting to 1 big centralised mainframe from a mix of random terminals. Now we have people using one (software) terminal to connect to many servers big and small. Requiring terminfo to be updated on the remote side is just nuts. Kitty should just identify as xterm like every other terminal written in the last 20 years.

virgoerns 6y ago
> Kitty should just identify as xterm like every other terminal written in the last 20 years. This is not my experience at all. I'd say most of terminals, including modern ones, have unique terminfos and work miserably when it's not installed. Examples include ST, kitty, alacritty. On top of that we have terminal multiplexers like tmux and screen which provide their unique terminfos as well.
- sime2009 6y ago
  Then our experience diffs greatly. I can't remember the last time I saw a $TERM which wasn't 'xterm' or 'xterm-256color'.
  - mrighele 6y ago
    I use rxvt-unicode which sets $TERM to "rxvt-unicode-256color," which is not recognized by a number of server to which I have to connect to from time to time.
    - JdeBP 6y ago
      There's a whole story about that, part of which is that at the time terminfo had to cater for old systems where there's a limit on the length of a terminal type name. But the same applies as for a missing kitty terminfo entry. The terminfo database is designed so that one can copy records around, and one can put them in a directory in one's home directory if one does not have administrative access to update the system database. Debian systems have had an rxvt-unicode-256color entry for approaching 10 years, now. FreeBSD for about the same. * https://sources.debian.org/src/ncurses/5.9-10/debian/rxvt-unicode.ti/ https://sources.debian.org/src/ncurses/5.9-10/debian/rxvt-un... * https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/share/termcap/termcap?r1=211066&r2=218844 https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/share/termcap/termcap?r...

staz 6y ago

> 2. By default mouse selection with double click + drag to select multiple lines is not normal. I believe this could be fixed but I haven't figured out how yet. (I could not re-create this right now, maybe it was fixed in some recent upgrade) double click do word selection, triple click do line selection , don't know if this is configurable