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If you want to use a terminal that is actually open source and doesn't have telemetry, much less only available via signing in with GitHub, use Alacritty, also

If you want to use a terminal that is actually open source and doesn't have telemetry, much less only available via signing in with GitHub, use Alacritty, also written in Rust and cross platform. https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty

bitwize 5y ago
Or just use xterm. It's blazing fast and even supports GPU acceleration if you are using a video driver that uses Xorg's GLAMOR acceleration framework. It has close to the lowest latency of any X terminal, as well. It has a reputation for being slow because it actually commits each character or terminal command to the display, you know, like a real terminal would. If you set the fastScroll X resource to true, xterm will behave like other terminal emulators and enable a speed hack that makes it skip display updates.
Aeolun 5y ago
Or Kitty, which does more or less the same things but includes split and tabs and other convenience features.
- mrpotato 5y ago
  Kitty is cool, I use it on debian, but it is not cross-platform. So I hesitate to compare it to alacritty.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Oh hell, you are right! I’m only using linux and OSX now, and it works on both, so I’d never considered it might not work on windows.
jamespwilliams 5y ago
I use alacritty every day, it’s the best terminal emulator I’ve come across. That said, it’s not perfect. For example it lacks font ligature support, and there appears to be no prospect of that being implemented. I don’t care about ligatures that much anyway, so no big deal for me, but for others it is. My experience using terminal emulators is that they are all flawed in at least one way. Whether it’s lack of true colour support; lack of ligature support; weird text rendering; weird colours; confusing configuration; etc. I feel like a terminal supporting all of those things must be possible, but I haven’t come across it yet.
- cercatrova 5y ago
  Kitty has the features you're looking for, such as font ligature support. If you're on Windows, I just use the Microsoft Terminal.
Deukhoofd 5y ago
Or alternatively wezterm, also open source, without telemetry, in Rust, and cross platform. https://github.com/wez/wezterm https://github.com/wez/wezterm
- crispyalmond 5y ago
  Wezterm is the best of the bunch I've tried, but I just keep going back to MATE terminal.
zhengt 5y ago
First of all, we love Alacritty: our terminal model code is based on Alacritty’s model code. We’re grateful that a few of the collaborators reviewed our early design docs. We think the two products are meant for two different audiences. Alacritty has a very minimalist philosophy that suits some terminal power users very well. It’s geared towards folks who are familiar with more advanced tools like tmux, and who are comfortable doing advanced configuration in the shell. For instance, Alacritty has no tabs: users are expected to use tmux. With Warp, you get similar performance to Alacritty (we are both Rust-based, GPU-accelerated native apps, and Warp leverages some of Alacritty’s model code) But you also get many more built-in features that we think make all developers more productive, like: - Blocks (grouping commands and outputs together) - A modern text editor for your input - Features like Workflows and AI command search that help you perform tasks faster - Tabs, native split panes, and menus
esrh 5y ago
It is a little bit unfortunate that alacritty is licensed under Apache, which means it can be forked into proprietary software like this. If it was gpl like kitty, the authors would have had no choice but to make it fully open source from the start.
- w4rh4wk5 5y ago
  They would not have used alacritty in that case.
  - the_gipsy 5y ago
    Well, it doesn't look like they will be giving back. They will open source some things yes, but it doesn't look like it will go back into alacritty.
    - w4rh4wk5 5y ago
      Which means it effectively makes no difference (for Alacritty) whether they use it or not.
- jillesvangurp 5y ago
  Actually, the ability to re-license has more to do with who owns the copyright than it has with what the license is. A problem with a lot of GPL and AGPL software is that the copyright holder is a single corporate entity that insists on a copyright transfer for every OSS contribution. Often the whole point of using the GPL or AGPL license by these companies is that they are so restrictive that their customers have an incentive to buy a commercial license. Nothing wrong with that of course and a valid business model. But it can become a problem when they choose to switch license or withdraw their product from the OSS market entirely (like Elastic did this last year). OSS where the individual contributors retain their copyright are much more robust. For example, Linux will never change license. It would be a legal nightmare to do that. They'd be chasing tens of thousands of copyright owners for their permission, or in some cases their surviving relatives. Every single one of them would have the power to say no. It would probably be cheaper to build a completely new OS kernel from scratch than to do that. Some companies that take issue with the license conditions actually are doing that. It's probably a big reason why Google is working on Fuchsia for example. A lot of Apache software has distributed copyright ownership. Particularly everything hosted by the Apache Foundation. Nothing wrong with that license. Great software. Has existed for decades, will continue to exist for centuries.
lovemekonsole 5y ago
I use Konsole. It's written in I-dont-know-and-dont-give-a-shit-why-is-that-even-relevant. It's free, does not spy on me, comes by default with Kubuntu and has great themes out of the box (including the Solarized themes).
- elproxy 5y ago
  C++ mostly ;)
- davidmurdoch 5y ago
  > It's written in I-dont-know-and-dont-give-a-shit-why-is-that-even-relevant. Same. But boy to people really like tools "written in Rust".
  - 0des 5y ago
    If you knew you could double your upvotes and praise by including that phrase why wouldn't you? I mainly write Go these days but when I submit my next tool to HN I'm just going to name it YadaYada Pro Written In Rust and retire on all the resulting upvotes. Its a foolproof plan and don't you dare judge me for it.
chillfox 5y ago
or Kitty https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/ https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/

bitwize 5y ago

Or just use xterm. It's blazing fast and even supports GPU acceleration if you are using a video driver that uses Xorg's GLAMOR acceleration framework. It has close to the lowest latency of any X terminal, as well. It has a reputation for being slow because it actually commits each character or terminal command to the display, you know, like a real terminal would. If you set the fastScroll X resource to true, xterm will behave like other terminal emulators and enable a speed hack that makes it skip display updates.

Aeolun 5y ago

Or Kitty, which does more or less the same things but includes split and tabs and other convenience features.

mrpotato 5y ago
Kitty is cool, I use it on debian, but it is not cross-platform. So I hesitate to compare it to alacritty.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Oh hell, you are right! I’m only using linux and OSX now, and it works on both, so I’d never considered it might not work on windows.

jamespwilliams 5y ago

I use alacritty every day, it’s the best terminal emulator I’ve come across. That said, it’s not perfect. For example it lacks font ligature support, and there appears to be no prospect of that being implemented. I don’t care about ligatures that much anyway, so no big deal for me, but for others it is. My experience using terminal emulators is that they are all flawed in at least one way. Whether it’s lack of true colour support; lack of ligature support; weird text rendering; weird colours; confusing configuration; etc. I feel like a terminal supporting all of those things must be possible, but I haven’t come across it yet.

cercatrova 5y ago
Kitty has the features you're looking for, such as font ligature support. If you're on Windows, I just use the Microsoft Terminal.

Deukhoofd 5y ago

Or alternatively wezterm, also open source, without telemetry, in Rust, and cross platform. https://github.com/wez/wezterm https://github.com/wez/wezterm

crispyalmond 5y ago
Wezterm is the best of the bunch I've tried, but I just keep going back to MATE terminal.

zhengt 5y ago

First of all, we love Alacritty: our terminal model code is based on Alacritty’s model code. We’re grateful that a few of the collaborators reviewed our early design docs. We think the two products are meant for two different audiences. Alacritty has a very minimalist philosophy that suits some terminal power users very well. It’s geared towards folks who are familiar with more advanced tools like tmux, and who are comfortable doing advanced configuration in the shell. For instance, Alacritty has no tabs: users are expected to use tmux. With Warp, you get similar performance to Alacritty (we are both Rust-based, GPU-accelerated native apps, and Warp leverages some of Alacritty’s model code) But you also get many more built-in features that we think make all developers more productive, like: - Blocks (grouping commands and outputs together) - A modern text editor for your input - Features like Workflows and AI command search that help you perform tasks faster - Tabs, native split panes, and menus

esrh 5y ago

It is a little bit unfortunate that alacritty is licensed under Apache, which means it can be forked into proprietary software like this. If it was gpl like kitty, the authors would have had no choice but to make it fully open source from the start.

w4rh4wk5 5y ago
They would not have used alacritty in that case.
- the_gipsy 5y ago
  Well, it doesn't look like they will be giving back. They will open source some things yes, but it doesn't look like it will go back into alacritty.
  - w4rh4wk5 5y ago
    Which means it effectively makes no difference (for Alacritty) whether they use it or not.
jillesvangurp 5y ago
Actually, the ability to re-license has more to do with who owns the copyright than it has with what the license is. A problem with a lot of GPL and AGPL software is that the copyright holder is a single corporate entity that insists on a copyright transfer for every OSS contribution. Often the whole point of using the GPL or AGPL license by these companies is that they are so restrictive that their customers have an incentive to buy a commercial license. Nothing wrong with that of course and a valid business model. But it can become a problem when they choose to switch license or withdraw their product from the OSS market entirely (like Elastic did this last year). OSS where the individual contributors retain their copyright are much more robust. For example, Linux will never change license. It would be a legal nightmare to do that. They'd be chasing tens of thousands of copyright owners for their permission, or in some cases their surviving relatives. Every single one of them would have the power to say no. It would probably be cheaper to build a completely new OS kernel from scratch than to do that. Some companies that take issue with the license conditions actually are doing that. It's probably a big reason why Google is working on Fuchsia for example. A lot of Apache software has distributed copyright ownership. Particularly everything hosted by the Apache Foundation. Nothing wrong with that license. Great software. Has existed for decades, will continue to exist for centuries.

lovemekonsole 5y ago

I use Konsole. It's written in I-dont-know-and-dont-give-a-shit-why-is-that-even-relevant. It's free, does not spy on me, comes by default with Kubuntu and has great themes out of the box (including the Solarized themes).

elproxy 5y ago
C++ mostly ;)
davidmurdoch 5y ago
> It's written in I-dont-know-and-dont-give-a-shit-why-is-that-even-relevant. Same. But boy to people really like tools "written in Rust".
- 0des 5y ago
  If you knew you could double your upvotes and praise by including that phrase why wouldn't you? I mainly write Go these days but when I submit my next tool to HN I'm just going to name it YadaYada Pro Written In Rust and retire on all the resulting upvotes. Its a foolproof plan and don't you dare judge me for it.

chillfox 5y ago

or Kitty https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/ https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/