Alacritty, is a free and open-source terminal emulator, written in Rust programming language. It works in Linux, Windows, MacOS, and uses OpenGL API for GPU hardware acceleration for fast response and high performance.

The terminal emulator features vi mode, allows to move around the viewport and scrollback using the keyboard. And, vi search and normal search for anything in the scrollback buffer.

Option 1: Install Alacritty via Snap package

For Ubuntu users, the easily way to install the terminal emulator is using the Snap package. It’s available in Ubuntu Software (App Center for 23.10), though run in sandbox.

Alacritty terminal emulator in App Center

Or, user can install it by running the command below in terminal:

snap install alacritty --classic

Option 2: Install Alacritty through Cargo (official)

The terminal emulator is also available to install through Cargo, the Rust package manager.

1. Just open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install Cargo first:

sudo apt install cargo

2. Then, install the required dependency packages:

sudo apt install cmake pkg-config libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig1-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev libxkbcommon-dev python3

3. Finally, use cargo to install the terminal package:

cargo install alacritty

When done, run ~/.cargo/bin/alacritty to start the terminal.

4. The cargo package manager does not install the desktop entry for Alacritty. So, you need to manually create one by running command:

nano ~/.local/share/applications/alacritty.desktop

Then, paste following lines in the terminal window:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=/home/ji/.cargo/bin/alacritty
Icon=alacritty
Terminal=false
Categories=System;TerminalEmulator;
Name=Alacritty
Comment=A fast, cross-platform, OpenGL terminal emulator
StartupNotify=true
StartupWMClass=Alacritty
Actions=New;

[Desktop Action New]
Name=New Terminal
Exec=/home/ji/.cargo/bin/alacrittyalacritty

NOTE: You need to replace ji to your username in the line above. Then, press Ctrl+S to save, and Ctrl+X to exit.

For the icon to display, run single command below to download img file and save to local icon folder:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alacritty/alacritty/master/extra/logo/compat/alacritty-term.png -O ~/.local/share/icons/alacritty.png

Or, you can download the icon from github web page and manually copy to .local/share/icons directory.

Option 3: Ubuntu PPA

For those who prefer the Ubuntu PPA repository, keep an eye on this launchpad page for all 3rd party PPAs.

Uninstall Alacritty

Depends on how you install the terminal emulator, either remove the Snap package from Ubuntu Software or by command:

snap remove alacritty

Or, run command to uninstall the cargo package:

cargo uninstall alacritty

You may also remove Cargo itself, if there’s no other rust packages installed, as well as some dev dependency libraries to free up some disk space.

sudo apt remove --autoremove cargo cmake pkg-config libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig1-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev libxkbcommon-dev

Also remove the desktop entry (shortcut file) by running command:

rm ~/.local/share/icons/alacritty.png ~/.local/share/applications/alacritty.desktop

For those who want to install the latest Tilix terminal emulator 1.9.5 in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. You can now get it from PPA repository.

Tilix is a popular tiling terminal emulator, that allows to split terminal window horizontally and/or vertically, and drag and drop re-arrange them. It also has many other great features including sync input between terminals, background images, quake mode (drop-down terminal), and custom hyperlinks.

The terminal emulator package is available in Ubuntu repository, but old. Though, the latest v1.9.5 has been released for 5 months. Changes in Tilix 1.9.5 include:

• Disable advanced paste when there is no linebreak like iTerm2
• Add environment variable when in quake mode
• Add possibility to configure always enabled regex
• And various bug-fixes.

1. Add PPA

The unofficial PPA so far contains the latest package for Ubuntu 22.04 only. Due to dependency issue, it does not build in Ubuntu 20.04.

To add the PPA, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/tilix

2. Update package cache

Ubuntu now automatically refresh the package cache while adding PPA. But, you have to run apt update command manually in some derivatives, e.g., Linux Mint.

sudo apt update

3. Install Tilix

Finally, install the software package by running command in terminal:

sudo apt install tilix

After installation, search for and open Tilix either from start menu or by searching from ‘Activities’ overview, depends on which DE you have.

How to Uninstall:

For any issue, you can install ppa-purge and use the tool to purge PPA. Which will also downgrade all installed packages from that PPA to the stock version in your Ubuntu:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/tilix

And if you need to terminal emulator any more, remove it either from Ubuntu Software or by running command in terminal:

sudo apt remove --autoremove tilix tilix-common

This simple tutorial shows how to change the default terminal emulator from Gnome Terminal to the one that you prefer in Ubuntu.

The default Gnome Terminal is great, but there are many good alternatives (e.g., tilix). If you prefer to use another one and want to set it as default, so you may press Ctrl+Alt+T to open it.

Step 1: Create symbolic link to x-terminal-emulator

Ubuntu seems default to x-terminal-emulator, which is a virtual package by default links to Gnome Terminal.

By creating a group of alternatives to the package allows to switch which one to use at any time with a single command.

Firstly, open terminal and run command to create a symbolic link (replace /usr/bin/tilix with your terminal emulator):

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator x-terminal-emulator /usr/bin/tilix 1

Some terminal emulators may already created the symbolic link automatically after installation, so you can just skip this step.

Step 2: Select your terminal to use as default:

Next, run the command below will output all available alternatives:

sudo update-alternatives --config x-terminal-emulator

Type the number for the one that you prefer and hit Enter will set it as default terminal.

In the case, I selected 5: ‘/usr/bin/tilix.wrapper’. It’s a Tilix wrapper with command line arguments that created automatically during installation. Step 1,

Restore and remove the alternative link:

To revert back to Gnome Terminal, just re-run the command in Step 2 and choose number 0 or 1.

And to remove the link created via Step 1, use command (replace ‘/usr/bin/tilix’ accordingly):

sudo update-alternatives --remove x-terminal-emulator /usr/bin/tilix

That’s all. Enjoy!

Tilix, the popular tiling terminal emulator, released v1.9.5 with a few new features and some bug-fixes.

Tilix is a GTK+3 terminal emulator supports for splitting app window horizontally or vertically. It supports drag and drop re-arranging terminals, quake mode, custom hyperlinks, as well as many other features.

After a year of development, it finally announced the new 1.9.5 with only a few new features due to lack of maintainers.

New features in Tilix 1.9.5 include:

• Disable advanced paste when there is no linebreak like iTerm2
• Add environment variable when in quake mode
• Add possibility to configure always enabled regex

Get Tilix 1.9.5 in Ubuntu:

There’s no binary package for current Ubuntu releases so far, though it’s proposed to be included in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS repository.

User may download the source code and build manually via the link below:

KGX is a simple and user-friendly terminal emulator for GNOME. It aims to be a “Core” app for GNOME and Phosh, graphical shell for mobile devices like Purism’s Librem 5.

Rather than replacing GNOME Terminal, it’s on target to serve casual Linux user who rarely needs a terminal to carry out simple command line tasks. Via libhandy library, the terminal adjusts nicely to small screen sizes and for touch usage.

KGX terminal emulator. Image from thisweek.gnome.org

The name KGX is the station code for King’s Cross, the London terminus of the East Coast Main Line. The app is available in Ubuntu repositories since Ubuntu 21.04, though the package version is lag behind.

The stock KGX in Ubuntu 21.10 has a semi-transparent app window and the UI looks kinda like Gnome terminal. Though it’s lightweight and has less features.

KGX in Ubuntu 21.10

Install KGX in Ubuntu 21.10 / 22.04:

For Ubuntu 21.04, Ubuntu 21.10 and next Ubuntu 22.04, it’s easy to try out this terminal emulator by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard, and then run command in terminal to install it:

sudo apt install kgx

Then, search for and open the terminal emulator from activities overview.

While the stock package is always old, you may build it from source which is available at KGX project page.