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Please suggest a terminal application for Ubuntu desktop which meets the following requirements:

  1. Paste via Right Mouse Click (without showing the context menu)
  2. Copy via Mouse selection.
  3. Solarized color scheme.

With current one "GNOME Terminal v3.6.0" it is not possible.
Or suggest a way to improve Gnome Terminal.

P.S. Why I dislike the "selection buffer" behavior. For example, I have in a text editor the word "command" and in terminal window command ls -la and I want to replace that word in Text Editor onto the command from terminal.

The selection buffer is not suitable in that case because when you will select "command" in the text editor to replace it you will have "command" in "selection buffer". So you will paste "command" instead of "command" :). You could only select ls -la and paste it after "command" via Middle Mouse Click and remove "command" after it. Too many clicks.

That is why I want to use "Clipboard" for that instead of "selection buffer".

Select with mouse -> Right Mouse Click -> Select in Context Menu Copy -> Left Mouse Click on that menu item - also too much clicks.

Kevin Bowen
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denys
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    It is actually possible to copy and paste using mouse in gnome-terminal 3.6. Please elaborate, if you mean something else. – green Apr 15 '13 at 10:33
  • @green7 yes. it is possible. via "selection buffer" But I want via "Clipboard" and using RMC instead of MMC. If there is no terminal emulator with such functionality. I'll try to use MMC. Or will code. – denys Apr 15 '13 at 10:42
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    I can do it in my computer. What doesn't work is CTRL+C, as this has a special meaning in the terminal. You can use SHIFT+CTRL+C to copy text or select it, rigth click and select copy. – Javier Rivera Apr 15 '13 at 10:47
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    @denys Have you tried clipboard managers, like clipit? You can get it from Software Center. – Basharat Sialvi Apr 15 '13 at 11:22
  • I don't see why you wouldn't be able to configure all this in Gnome terminal – thomasrutter Oct 04 '22 at 04:58

7 Answers7

48

GNOME Terminal has the above functionalities.


In case you didn't know, in most terminal emulators:

  • Copy text: Ctrl + Shift + c
  • Past text: Ctrl + Shift + v

Have a look at these great alternatives

Tilda

Simple, GTK+ pop-up terminal - https://github.com/lanoxx/tilda

Tilda terminal emulator sreenshot Install via the software center

Guake

GTK+ popup terminal. Great multi-monitor support. - https://github.com/Guake/guake

Guake sreenshot Install via the software center

Check out Yakuake for a Qt/KDE alternative.

Terminology

Feature rich terminal using the EFL toolkit. https://www.enlightenment.org/about-terminology

Terminology sreenshot

WebUpd8 article about Terminology

Error404
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beanaroo
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30

There is one more terminal application you can install & the includes with many features . It's named as terminator.

you can install it with

sudo apt-get install terminator

in your terminal with CTRL+ALT+T

enter image description here

Raja G
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13

Guake is a GREAT emulator. You can install it with:

sudo apt-get install guake
xaxxon
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Ryan
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11

I believe this is a pretty neat combination:

Alacritty + quake-mode + Byobu with/or tmux

As I said 1 2 3, I'm a happy user of Alacritty with Byobu inside it, which by default use tmux (better than screen).

  1. Install Alacritty and byobu: sudo apt install alacritty byobu (or with dependencies and cargo install alacritty, you can remove cargo cmake cmake-data librhash0 libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev afterward).

  2. On GNOME: Install quake-mode or any way to enable a global shortcut (for the time being mandatory on Wayland). Alacritty currently doesn't offer a --toggle/--quake option. Configure it to run the terminal with the global shortcut of your choice (for eg F12).

    Wayland didn't allow applications registering global shortcuts/hotkeys (security reasons, control a not focused app). The only apps working are the old ones running over xwayland.
    Update: Now we have XDG Desktop Portals (xdg-desktop-portals) for global shortcuts. Already implemented on KDE, but not on GNOME.

  3. Setup Alacritty on ~/.config/alacritty.yml:

    window:
      opacity: 0.8
      # Or Windowed
      startup_mode: Fullscreen
    key_bindings:
      - { key: F11, action: ToggleFullscreen }
    shell:
      program: /usr/bin/byobu
    
  4. To hide it from taskbar (validate syntax with desktop-file-edit):

    # WIP, sometimes doesn't work
    Exec=sh -c "~/.local/bin/alacritty & sleep 1;/usr/bin/wmctrl -x -r Alacritty.Alacritty -b add,skip_taskbar"
    

Also,

  • I changed the local byobu/tmux escape sequence (F9) to Ctrl + h so it doesn't interfere with tmux on a remote server.

  • Other byobu-related suggestions:

    • Learn byobu's shortcuts with Shift + F1, this excellent screencast or this great cheat-sheet.
    • Learn available byobu terminal commands with apropos byobu, like byobu-config (configuration utility).
      • By default, byobu uses tmux as backend (you can use tmux shortcuts!). If you hate yourself, change it with byobu-select-backend.
    • To use fn keys on Midnight Commander, use Alt + Nº or Shift + F12 to disable byobu F-keys.
  • tdrop (A Glorified WM-Independent Dropdown Creator) now seems to work on Wayland. Also, this extension seems incompatible.

zsh + oh-my-zsh + themes + plugins

Just that would be total happiness, but you can also:

To install powerlevel10k:

  1. Install the recommended font. Optional but highly recommended.

    wget --no-clobber --directory-prefix ~/.local/share/fonts/ https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k-media/raw/master/MesloLGS%20NF%20Regular.ttf https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k-media/raw/master/MesloLGS%20NF%20Bold.ttf https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k-media/raw/master/MesloLGS%20NF%20Italic.ttf https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k-media/raw/master/MesloLGS%20NF%20Bold%20Italic.ttf
    fc-cache -f -v  # maybe not necessary
    

    Add to ~/.config/alacritty.yml

    font:
      normal:
        family: "MesloLGS NF"
    
  2. Install Powerlevel10k itself.

    git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k
    

    Set ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k" in ~/.zshrc.

  3. Restart Zsh with exec zsh.

  4. Type p10k configure if the configuration wizard doesn't start automatically.

See also

  • Starship: The minimal, blazing-fast, and infinitely customizable prompt for any shell!. Similar to what you'll get with some zsh's plugins/themes. Alternative to powerlevel10k.
  • CLI improved: Better alternatives to common CLI programs.
  • Test your terminal setup with this test drive.
  • Other tools
    • Navi: An interactive cheatsheet tool for the command-line
    • cheat / tldr: allows you to create and view interactive cheatsheets on the command-line / Collaborative cheatsheets for console commands
Pablo Bianchi
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  • This is the one I was looking for. I went through this, and it was a hell of a ride! Thank you for such a complete and detailed yet concise answer, accompanied with the necessary links. – ali14 Mar 12 '20 at 00:21
1

In any circumstance, I would suggest Simple Terminal (completely customizable look. Cozy and good-looking.) and I3WM. I3WM is cozy, but you must know what to look for. I3 is a dual-boot. It is a window manager that enhances performance and accessibility of you Linux distribution. Ubuntu 18.04 has the files for it pre-downloaded. To install it,sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get install i3. If this does not work, try

$ /usr/lib/apt/apt-helper download-file http://dl.bintray.com/i3/i3-autobuild-ubuntu/pool/main/i/i3-autobuild-keyring/i3-autobuild-keyring_2016.10.01_all.deb keyring.deb SHA256:460e8c7f67a6ae7c3996cc8a5915548fe2fee9637b1653353ec62b954978d844
$ sudo apt install ./keyring.deb
$ sudo echo 'deb http://dl.bintray.com/i3/i3-autobuild-ubuntu bionic main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/i3-autobuild.list
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install i3

Now for Simple Terminal (ST)

You can download the files for ST from https://st.suckless.org/. To install: click on the Archive Manager. Choose the ST file that you have downloaded. Now click unpack. Then, go to your terminal (the GNOME one.) and CD to it with cd /home/YOURUSERNAME/Desktp/st-0.8.2. Then, install it with xdg-open INSTALL. Fianlly,

./configure
make
sudo make && make install
Pablo Bianchi
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Logan
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0

For Copy and paste you can do it even without a mouse to do this:

  • Copy: ctrl + shift + c
  • Paste: ctrl + shift + v

And I recommend you to use terminator and then install "Oh my zsh" on it it will make your terminal better and beautiful and with installing packages on it, it'll give you nice features like auto-completion and... for downloading terminator :

sudo apt install terminator

and for installing zsh :

sudo apt-get install zsh

Build from source for newer versions: (Firstly, download build-zsh.sh)

chmod +x build-zsh.sh
./build-zsh.sh
Melebius
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Jessica
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0

In a default bash configuration, you can yank text and place it back on the shell without needing the mouse.

  • CTRL+x+Backspace: yanks text from just before the cursor to the beginning of the line (the man page calls the backspace "rubout")
  • CTRL+k: kill text from the cursor to the end of the line
  • CTRL+y: places yanked text back onto the shell

Have a look at the man page for readline. It's got a lot of neat keyboard shortcuts.

CG3
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