I almost exclusively use Yakuake nowadays. I like the drop down terminal.
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2023
5 points (100.0% liked)
Linux
47952 readers
1459 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
alacritty
Terminator is the one I've been using for a while
When I'm using a tiling window manager, I use kitty, because I like its speed and support for font ligatures. When I'm using a Desktop Environment like Gnome or KDE I usually don't use the terminal at all, but if I need it, I use the default emulator.
Sorry for the off-topic question, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around basic linux concepts: you use "tiling window manager" and "desktop environment" as if they were mutually exclusive options. What's the relationship between them?
Thanks!
Window Managers manage windows as the name suggests and control how they are displayed and interacted with. A window manager is one component of a desktop environment which provides other facilities like compositors, task bars, status trays, task switchers, configuration applets, virtual desktops, and perhaps some default applications for basic things like terminal, file management, text editing, connection management, and image viewing. Some desktop environments feature extensive plug-in systems ( extensions ) and vast application ecosystems.
In the early days of Linux, there were no “desktop environments” and you would run a window manager directly over the window server ( eg. X11 ) with applications running directly over the WM. Proprietary UNIX introduced desktop environments like CDE, OpenWindows, and NeXTstep but, as they were proprietary, Linux lacked them. This changed with the advent of KDE and GNOME soon after. These days, the vast majority of Linux users are working with a desktop environment ( probably still one of these two though there are now others ).
A timing window manager in particular is a window manager that allows auto arranging and resizing applications to share the screen ( typically using keyboard commands ). The goal of a tiling window manager is that application views do not overlap and that the full desktop space is used efficiently. A floating window manager in contrast allows windows to overlap and leaves positioning, resizing, visibility, and focus up to the user. The desktop itself may be plainly visible and may even have clickable icons or applets displayed on it. Interaction with windows in a floating window manager is usually done with the mouse. Windows and Mac are examples of the floating metaphor so that is the one most of us are more familiar with. Any given window manager can incorporate both floating and tiling ideas and features but most WMs lean pretty heavily one way or the other.
Technically, a window manager is just a special kind of application. In X11, it is not even required. You can run applications directly without one but, if you run more than one application, you will quickly understand the value of a window manager. The value of a full desktop environment is more a matter of preference. Most people welcome them or consider them essential. Others see DEs as bloat. The middle ground is assembling a desktop experience yourself from a group of applications you select for that purpose from the window manager up.
Silva? Are you Portuguese or Brazilian?
Neither, actually. I don't know why I call myself silva, but that's not my real name.
Lol thats a common surname here in Brazil. It means jungle in latin so the priests used to give this surname to converted natives.
Interesting. In English, "Silvan" mean a spirit that lives in the woods. It's often used in literature as a synonym for "elves."
Probably the same root
That's what I was thinking, but I noped out of a linguistics minor after a year when I realized it was never going to turn into "learning a bunch of languages" and was instead spending all your time doing sentance diagramming.
Yakuake, I can't use anything other than a quake based terminal. Because of my work I need 24/7 quick access to a terminal, yakuake is just that
I never got into Quake, but I love the concept of having a terminal whenever you want with a simple press of an F-key.
XTerm. I used to use rxvt-unicode, but it only supports 256 colors and gave me grief when I tried to get some emacs color theme working. There's only one thing I miss, which is that rxvt-unicode reflows lines when you resize the terminal, which xterm won't do. Oh and urxvtc starts very slightly faster, but no big deal.
I also looked at kitty, and I like that the author of that one tries to champion new features, like full keyboard support on par with X11 apps. But it takes noticeably longer to start and the latency also feels worse.
I have to ask. I launch new terminals with Super+Enter, I barely have time to release my key chord, and kitty is already opened. I understand "slower", but 100% slower than a couple tens milliseconds is still a couple tens of milliseconds. My WM/compositor popping up the window and shell probably take longer by themselves than the difference in launch times between those two.
YMMV depending on what you consider to be noticeable delay & latency, I guess?
Just tried this again. Kitty takes like maybe half a second to start on my machine (maybe yours is faster?). Not sure how to measure this. xterm starts almost instantly. I can type "Super+Enter ls" and it'll work. Doesn't work with kitty, the keystrokes just disappear. Is this actually important? Probably not, but it feels annoying. Like slow internet.
I might have imagined the typing latency, since it feels the same as xterm now. Maybe I'm remembering wrong. I was on the old Debian when I last tried this though, so something could have changed.