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When you first started using Linux, the terminal was a necessity, but now GUIs are so advanced, user-friendly and powerful that you may never touch a terminal window once you start using Linux.
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But if you actually need to run these commands, you’ll need a better terminal app than the standard default that your distribution likely uses.
Luckily, there are plenty of options to choose from, and here are my five favorites (all free and installable from your distribution’s default repositories):
1. Guake
Guake is just so cool. It’s a drop-down terminal client that rolls down from the top of your display when you press F12 on your keyboard. When you’re done, press F12 again and it’ll hide until you need it again. Guake is also highly configurable. You can tweak startup and tabs, main window, shell, scrolling, appearance, keyboard shortcuts, quick open, hooks and compatibility.
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Guake comes with a variety of features including transparency, theming, shell selection, and more. What I really like about Guake is that it’s always available – just hit the keyboard shortcut to use it. Instead of adding yet another icon to your favorites (or desktop), it keeps things neat while still giving you easy access to your terminal app.
Guake is one of my favorite Linux terminal apps.
Jack Warren\ZDNET
2. Warp
Warp is a terminal app on steroids. The big draw with Warp is that it has built-in AI that can be used to help you learn commands and answer questions about the programming language you’re trying to learn. One really cool feature of Warp is that it can ask you questions to determine what commands you need to run.
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For example, let’s say you want to see a long list of the contents of your home directory and see hidden files. Instead of having to remember ls -la ~/, you can type show what’s in ~/. The addition of natural language makes it easier to learn the commands you need to use Linux. I’ve covered Warp on its own, so check out my full review to see just how great this app is.
Warp is a great option, especially if you like the idea of AI assistance.
Jack Warren\ZDNET
3. Kitty
We’re not talking about the PUSA song, we’re talking about the Linux terminal app. At first glance, you might think that Kitty is just a simple terminal app, but it has a few tricks up its sleeve. For example, Kitty includes split panes, which allow you to split your terminal window into multiple panes (vertically or horizontally). To split a pane, press Ctrl+Shift+Enter on your keyboard, which will split your terminal into two vertical panes. Pressing this combination again will split the focused vertical pane into two horizontal panes.
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Kitty also includes some handy features, such as the ability to edit remote files locally. This is a bit tricky to do, but easy once you get the hang of it. To achieve this, you need to use Kitty’s kittens plugin feature, which includes an SSH plugin. Connect remotely to the machine with the help of ssh kitten, as follows:
kitty + kitty ssh user@server
Where user is the username on the remote server and server is the IP address of the remote server. Once logged in, issue the following command:
Then press Ctrl + Shift and click the file you want to edit. You will be asked if you want to edit, open, or save the file.
It’s a little tricky, but it’s a really useful feature once you start using it.
4. The Terminator
Terminator is another terminal app that allows for horizontal and vertical splitting. You can also assign a custom title to each terminal window, so you won’t get confused. This is a handy feature if you want to use one terminal for administrative tasks (such as on a remote machine) and another for local tasks. These panes can be dragged and dropped in any order you like.
Terminator also supports profiles, color schemes, font configurations, and customizable keyboard shortcuts.
There’s a sign on the window saying “We’ll be back.”
Jack Warren\ZDNET
5. Ethelme
Eterm is a holdover from the Enlightenment era. This terminal window app is pretty basic, but it does have a lot of features, including background images, transparency, and brightness/contrast/gamma controls.
One thing to keep in mind about Eterm is that it is designed for the Enlightenment desktop, so the exact features that work may vary depending on the desktop environment you use.
Also, the app window menu adheres to the Enlightenment look and feel, so it looks a bit out of place. Still, this is a fun terminal app, even if only for the background image feature.
Et’am holds a special place in my heart.
Jack Warren\ZDNET
So there you have it, five terminal apps that you’ll probably enjoy more than the default for your Linux distribution of choice.
