Terminal emulators

rxvt-unicode (urxvt): a robust, lightweight terminal

The terminal I used for a few years was rxvt-unicode. It has a daemon mode which is included in .xinitrc. Client windows attach to the daemon, which results in much less memory usage overall. One of key weaknesses of urxvt is around fonts:

  • emojis do not render in their usual artistic flavorings, but there is some basic support for rendering the shapes.
  • a number of fonts are not usable, but you can eventually find one that works
  • getting 24-bit color requires a patch which is not generally applied in released builds

Still, rxvt-unicode is a fine emulator, and my favorite terminal to use especially in environments that have limited RAM.

Alacritty: low latency terminal emulator

I currently use alacritty, a terminal emulator started in 2016 that targets the GPU. The color theme is integrated via a pywal template.

Templating externally is possible (e.g. ACE replacement hack). A workaround is applied so that CTRL+K resets the scrollback and data buffer correctly.

If you have the Rust toolchain installed, run cargo install alacritty to get the terminal.

Note: Alacritty is an experimental application with a number of long-existent problems (as of 0.8.0):

Other interesting terminal emulator applications

  • kitty: GPU terminal written in Python+C. About as heavy as Alacritty.
  • LXterminal: good feature set, very configurable (with graphical menus).
  • cool-retro-term: cool effects for archival purposes. is not the practical choice
  • hyper: JavaScript terminals. Disclosure: I last used version 2 or 1, when vercel was still called zeit
  • xterm: been around forever, works great
  • xfce4-terminal: Graphical driven config with good support for theming
  • iTerm2 (for MacOS): still a good replacement for vanilla MacOS Terminal

See the Windows page for Windows programs.