[solved] rxvt-unicode (urxvt)

Acecero · 2008-08-22 02:00:05

Around the neighborhood, I've been seeing urxvt being used by many and I wonder, how well does it fair with Terminal (xfce4-terminal) that I currently use and the rest of the terminals out there? I'm really interested in knowing what makes this terminal "better" then the rest and why many perfer it.

Last edited by Acecero (2008-08-25 04:54:16)

voteforpedro36 · 2008-08-22 02:02:27

It's light, fairly easy to configure (not as easy as xfce-terminal probably, mind you), and it supports unicode.

fflarex · 2008-08-22 03:18:02

Even though I currently use it, I wouldn't really say it's "better" than any others I've used. I only use it because it's light with few dependencies. No GTK+ or Qt, so I can keep it no matter how many times I change my mind on DEs or WMs. There are certainly people out there who put it to good use for its actual feature set, but as far as I'm concerned, most terminal emulators are pretty equal, seeing as they all bring you to the same programs.

Key features over xterm: pseudo-transparency and perl extensions (for things like highlighting links and letting you open them in your browser, and tabs (but screen is better for that)), trimmed down a bit.

Features over Terminal, gnome-terminal, konsole, etc.: shorter, lighter periods.

Really, if you don't need to trim down on dependencies, and you don't know the differences (or in my case, don't understand them when you read them), then you don't need to worry about switching.

Purch · 2008-08-22 03:31:11

Want some more colors? Try rxvt-unicode-256color from AUR.

bangkok_manouel · 2008-08-22 03:33:33

urxvt can also be used in daemon mode (uses less ressources), has tabs and can handle url's nicely.

apaige · 2008-08-22 07:02:22

fflarex: urxvt has support for both fake and real transparency (the latter requires a composited environment though).

daf666 · 2008-08-22 07:47:23

I do use urxvt and xterm exclusivley.. the things they painfully lack are normal copy pasting and tabbing.
I know its possible.. but by normal I mean nice and useable...

Inxsible · 2008-08-22 14:36:04

When I used Ubuntu - way back when - I would just use the default terminal it gave me. Even in Debian.

For Arch, - it gives me a choice to install either xterm - within the xorg package - so I choose not to and then install urxvt. I don't know..I just do !

I tried mrxvt for a while - but didn't like the look of it and also it did not render man pages correctly. All the man pages would have weird characters for some reason. Since then I switched to urxvt- not that I use unicode much but still.

I have no use for tabs - as I have realized over the years. Screen does an awful good job for me. Nor am I heavily into transparency.

All in all, it doesn't matter. Most terminals have all the standard functionality for a regular user.

rooloo · 2008-08-22 15:20:36

daf666 wrote:

I do use urxvt and xterm exclusivley.. the things they painfully lack are normal copy pasting and tabbing.
I know its possible.. but by normal I mean nice and useable...

Normal copy and paste? you mean windows copy and paste? Highlight/middleclick is not what you would consider normal or you don't consider it windoweeee enough for you?

plus urxvt has a gtk tabbed version.

urxvt-tabbed

I do not use xfce terminal anymore, messes to much with my ncurse app based shortcut keys. That is why I urxvt!!!!

Last edited by rooloo (2008-08-22 15:22:48)

fflarex · 2008-08-22 15:51:09

apaige wrote:

fflarex: urxvt has support for both fake and real transparency (the latter requires a composited environment though).

Oops, my bad. Guess I was under the impression that workarounds were needed for true transparency. Now to change my setup to something a little less confusing...

daf666 · 2008-08-22 18:34:13

rooloo wrote:

daf666 wrote:
I do use urxvt and xterm exclusivley.. the things they painfully lack are normal copy pasting and tabbing.
I know its possible.. but by normal I mean nice and useable...
Normal copy and paste? you mean windows copy and paste? Highlight/middleclick is not what you would consider normal or you don't consider it windoweeee enough for you?

yes.

rooloo wrote:

plus urxvt has a gtk tabbed version.
urxvt-tabbed

it sucks.

lang2 · 2008-08-22 23:09:09

urxvt is light weight indeed. But it is not as "easy to use" (if there is such a thing as easy-to-use terminal that is). Terminal isn't much heavier TBH. The lack of dependecy on gtk2 and qt does it a good choice for remote connections.

Procyon · 2008-08-23 00:15:04

I need unicode, and all my attempts to get unicode in xterm have been a failure. Getting unicode working in urxvt is a breeze.

mclang · 2008-08-23 06:31:19

Strange

I wish every program used Highlight/Middleclick style copy/paste... It just is more comfortable for me than ctrl+c/ctrl+v

bangkok_manouel · 2008-08-23 10:51:29

As for tabs, use the perl extension, not urxvt-tabbed, shift+down for a new tab, shift+left/right to navigate, do not know anything faster/efficient.

moljac024 · 2008-08-23 11:25:22

mclang wrote:

Strange
I wish every program used Highlight/Middleclick style copy/paste... It just is more comfortable for me than ctrl+c/ctrl+v

Not quite for me, because I have a nasty habit of always selecting some text when I'm reading something.

carlocci · 2008-08-23 14:01:24

bangkok_manouel wrote:

As for tabs, use the perl extension, not urxvt-tabbed, shift+down for a new tab, shift+left/right to navigate, do not know anything faster/efficient.

You can't scroll with the keyboard anymore if you use tabs, at least me.

Strange
I wish every program used Highlight/Middleclick style copy/paste... It just is more comfortable for me than ctrl+c/ctrl+v

Until you need to copy from a wine application

peets · 2008-08-23 15:05:32

I initially got urxvt because of pseudo-transparency I think, or because everyone else was using it. I'm keeping it because of mouseless url yanking: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=17263! alt-u to cycle through urls, <enter> to open them in firefox... very nice.

Acecero · 2008-08-24 05:17:46

@voteforpedro36: ok, so "not as easy" as Terminal but quite managable, gotcha.

@fflarex: That's a good point, I don't see anything wrong with Terminal in my current usage, maybe in the future if I come to find a feature that only currently only exists to urxvt, that would be a good reason to switch.

@Purch: Thanks.

@bangkok_manouel: That's cool, can other terminals be deamonized as well?

@apaige: That's good to know, I'm actually using real transparency with xcompmgr and maybe I grow out of it someday but for now I do like taking advantage of it.

@daf666: So ctrl-shift-c, ctrl-shift-v is not what you consider normal? I'm fine with that.

@Inxsible: Cool, thanks for sharing some of the experiences you had with terminals. I can understand now that it doesn't matter what terminal you use, the goal is to find the right terminal that works best for your needs, in this case, you didn't want a slighty bloated terminal that initially supports tabs, though urxvt can, you would have to set that up, so why bother? I want to hear more about this "screen" thing, how does it work for you. That's what I like to hear from users.

@rooloo: Oh really? That might be something I could be concern about in the future, that unless it gets fix in the next release, which then I don't know when that's going to happen or when that might be fixed.

@lang2: So the only question left is, do I need to go lighter? I guess not.

@peets: Could you please explain more details on the mouseless url yanking? It's sound very interesting.

Now I have general question out of curiousity, from everyone's experience, can there every be a light weight application that is more well featured then a bloated piece of software or is it just some features that are not needed, that going lighter is more beneficial in some way?

Wintervenom · 2008-08-24 06:27:45

I use urxvt, because all the terminals that use VTE are painfully slow for me, especially when maximized, when it scrolls. It eats up all CPU when it does that.

Last edited by Wintervenom (2008-08-24 06:29:09)

Acecero · 2008-08-24 06:37:45

Wintervenom wrote:

I use urxvt, because all the terminals that use VTE are painfully slow for me, especially when maximized, when it scrolls. It eats up all CPU when it does that.

How much of your CPU does urxvt use?

Wintervenom · 2008-08-24 06:46:19

Less than five percent.

Acecero · 2008-08-24 06:57:46

Wow, that's impressive, did you also use any features along with that, like transpancy, tabs, deamon mode, etc?

Wintervenom · 2008-08-24 07:38:18

I only use the tabs.

Last edited by Wintervenom (2009-08-05 13:43:28)

muunleit · 2008-08-24 08:16:26

I use urxvt for me CLI Jabberclient and MOC (fake)transparent on my desktop.

(older shot)

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[solved] rxvt-unicode (urxvt)

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