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Alacritty, Konsole, or something else? Which terminal emulator do you recommend?

So, Konsole shipped by default with KDE Plasma, my current Desktop Environment. While I don’t have a problem with it, I am interested in what other people are using, because there very likely is something better out there.

Specifically I’ve seen talk of Kitty and Alacritty, although I’ve also read that the dev of Kitty is allegedly kind of a jerk, so I am specifically interested in how Konsole matches up to Alacritty in your experience, but other suggestions and general terminal emulator discussion are also welcome!

BaumGeist ,

TLDR: try them out, see what you like. It’s a relatively easy switch-out, it’s not like you’re debating different web stacks.

I used zutty for awhile. It was fine and lightweight, but broke when I switched back from the nvidia drivers to nouveau (it’s an older laptop that has no reason to milk every last bit of performance out of its gpu).

Now I’m using Alacritty. I like that I can configure it in a .yml file instead of needing to use my mouse, I like that it’s written in Rust, I like that I got it to do transparency within minutes. I love the vi mode.

On my daily driver I use Terminator. I like the multiplexing/tabs/panes, the infinite scrollback when needed, and the logger plugin when needed. I might see if I can get it to do transparency tomorrow.

xterm has always treated me well too. Just a good, solid choice.

I guess my two biggest pieces of advice re: terminal emulators are

  1. use tmux, it’s extremely convenient once you get the hang of it. It’s like any terminal-based text editor: hard to learn, but such a pleasure to use once you’ve got it down. Why waste time moving over to grab your mouse when you could just hit 2-3 keys?
  2. configure the hell out of whatever you pick. It doesn’t feel comfortable, like it’s your command line—in the same way that it’s your bed, or your chair, or your computer—until you’ve configured it. After you do, it just feels comfortable. Change the color scheme to all custom colors, change the font, change the shell, change the sounds, change the cursor blink rate, disable cursor, disable animations, disable text output, enable scrollback, enable logging, enable transparency, enable autopilot, adjust the retro encabulator, fasten your seatbelts, eat your veggies, stay in school.
  3. use transparency. There’s just something so pleasant about something more than a solid color background.
MonkderZweite ,

xfce4-terminal. Runs fine without xfce4.

WeLoveCastingSpellz ,

konsole is fast and reliableI like it

azvasKvklenko ,

Kitty - super simple, configurable and lightweight

wallybeavis ,

Also you can export your client list, which is helpful when migrating from machine to machine

graycube ,

I've been using Alacritty (on Wayland) for the past few years. I like it's customizability. My only real complaint is that there are times when I really miss having scrollbars. After reading this thread I'll have to give kitty a try. I think I tried it a couple if years ago and was not impressed, but maybe it has gotten a lot better since then.

graycube ,

Having looked closer, kitty just looks too complicated. I just want a nice terminal. Kitty doesn't have scrollbars either. I'll stick with Alacritty for now.

flubba86 ,

Hey, have a look at Wezterm. I was an Alacritty user for 3 years, but always wanted a scrollbar and tabs. Wezterm is what you are looking for.

Pantherina ,

On Cosmic you can tile multiple windows in tabs. Tabs are essential for me, I tried Alacritty (and it had quite some issues but I got it to work) and switched back to Konsole

Bankenstein ,

I’ve used GNOME’s terminal, Konsole, kitty, st, cool-retro-term, Alacritty, foot, and Wezterm.

The things I want from a terminal emulator are:

  • Ligatures
  • Customisability
  • Icon support / good font management
  • High-ish performance

Wezterm is afaik the only one with all of those.

Konsole is actually a pretty good terminal emulator, its big downside is that it looks horribly out-of-place in anything other than Plasma. So as long as you stay on Plasma, Konsole is a good choice. If you ever move to a WM or something, I recommend foot or Wezterm.

Alacritty has some degree of customisability, Konsole has more, but either way it’s nothing when compared to Wezterm. It is really fast though!

The thing that skews the duel in favour of Konsole for me is the ligature support. I use neovim for programming and we all know code ligatures are a godsend, so ligature support in the terminal is very much a thing that I want.

ScottE ,

urxvt is the only terminal I’ll use. Every time I try something else I come back to it because of some basic thing that’s not right - usually font rendering which urxvt is one of the few that works well with scalable fonts. It’s fast and simple and does everything I need without any bloated stuff I’ll never use.

governorkeagan ,

I’ve been really happy with Kitty.

pH3ra ,
@pH3ra@lemmy.ml avatar

It all depends by what you need it for.
I remember the first years I approached Linux I wanted to try every bit of software and that made me waste a lot of time and energy because I hadn’t already learned to ask myself that question.
If you just need a terminal to run updates and basic commands, stick with what your distro is shipped with. It will be better integrated and well tested and will save you a lot of time.
If you need something in specific instead, you’ll be able to find the software with a feature set that will match all your needs.

jennraeross ,

Honestly, Konsole is fantastic. On Gnome I use Blackbox, on Sway I use Foot, but if you’re on KDE you don’t really get better than Konsole.

Alacritty and Kitty are both terminals I used to use back when I was on i3wm, they’re perfectly usable, but I don’t think the average user will gain any tangible benefit from replacing Konsole.

const_void ,

KDE user so I use Konsole. It’s great.

drwho ,
@drwho@beehaw.org avatar

I use Gnome Terminal and Mate Terminal on my laptop. Nothing fancy, they just work. They do what I need (which is run a shell), they support tabs, and transparency is just nice to have. I also run Tilda because once in a while I need to enter a quick command without changing desktops.

LiamMayfair ,

Kitty. Don’t really care about the dev. I don’t use software or not just because the devs are assholes, as long as they’re not cannibals or pedos ofc. Even less so if it’s FOSS.

pingveno ,

I just never would recommend mixing Gnome’s Terminal and Konsole. Gnome and KDE never seem to play nice with each other. Besides that, go wild.

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