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Comment by jstimpfle | Hacker News Reader

I've been on xterm since I've started using Linux seriously in 2008. I probably wouldnt have tested it because was probably a bit obscure then like it is now. It's not perfect, it's baroque, has terrible configurability, no tabs and an ugly context menu. But it's honestly the only usable terminal, none other has stuck with me. Most are far too sluggish to even start up. Then there is key input latency. Then some of the newer ones are only usable with good gpu support, but not from a VM like Virtualbox or maybe VMware where graphics isnt working great.

Another thing for a very long time has been that most other terminals don't support bitmap fonts. This was/is critical for lower DPI monitors. Today I've mostly made the switch to TTF fonts.

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Thank God for this comment, for a minute I thought I was the only one!

I've been using plain xterm/uxterm with black on white since 2000 at least.

With Vim gaining :terminal support, I need nothing else - I have tabs, splits, proper scrollback buffer navigation because the scroll buffer is a vim buffer...

Honestly, only emacs is a better terminal.

> I probably wouldnt have tested it

(if not for a nerdy sysadmin/hacker person that introduced me to all of that at the time). Was typing on smartphone half-asleep...

I used to like rxvt (or its clone rxvt-unicode) when using X-Windows. What are your thoughts about it compared to xterm?

I generally use alacritty but used rxvt back when. That's a name I've not heard in awhile!

I tried `cat /dev/random` in alacritty, rxvt, and xterm to compare output speed. rxvt and xterm both start 'instantly' on my laptop. With alacritty it's slower. Scroll speed of both rxvt and xterm are very similar though xterm seems to win by a little. Both blow the doors off alacritty though.

I'm not sure if this is a fair test, and hence why I posted, but if it is this is a very easy way to get a feel for the difference.

It would probably have been the best alternative. I remember it felt similar to xterm, wasn't bloated as many others in the way I described. I don't remember why exactly it didn't stick for me, also don't remember any things it did better. One reason might have been compatibility -- out of the box, most programs work quite well with xterm.

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