Good terminal app for the Librem 5?

Hardware Librem 5
1

Phosh’s default terminal app, King’s Cross (kgx), is not very usable at this point.

Version 0.2.1 which comes with current Byzantium only has two configuration options:

$ gsettings list-recursively | grep KingsCross
org.gnome.zbrown.KingsCross font-scale 1.0
org.gnome.zbrown.KingsCross theme 'night'

It only keeps a limited number of lines in its memory, so scroll-back is very limited. To see a complete dmesg on the L5, I have to do: sudo dmesg | less

I can paste text into kgx by using a long press until a context menu appears which has “Select All” and “Paste” options. However, I can’t figure out how to copy text from kgx. The “Select All” option doesn’t copy text into the clipboard, and I can’t figure out any key combinations like CTL+c or CTL+SHIFT+c to copy text.

I looked through the source code, and I see that kgx version 0.4.0 (released 3 weeks ago) has added a “scrollback-lines” property that can be set with gsettings, so that should solve the limited scroll-back problem, but this version isn’t yet packaged in PureOS byzantium.

I installed Terminator, which does support normal cut and paste with the CTL+SHIFT+c and CTL+SHIFT+v key combinations, but I can’t figure out how to access the app’s menu on the L5 and it only supports scroll back through a tiny vertical scroll bar, which is hard to touch with my fingers.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good adaptive/touch-friendly terminal app for the L5?

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2

Re the copy function, try a press and slow drag:

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A slow drag selects text, but it doesn’t copy text into the clipboard. How do you copy the text in kgx?

4

Select text, then >_ key, then Menu key, then Copy.

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OK, that works, but I hope that kgx improves this, because that is totally unobvious and unintuitive.

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This particular functionality has to do more with Squeekboard than kgx, doesn’t it?

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Yes, Squeekboard decided to implement the “Menu” key that way, but kgx could add “Copy” and “Paste” options to its hamburger (three horizontal lines) menu. Another possibility is to add “Copy” and “Paste” options to its long press context menu. It could also support CTL+SHIFT+c and CTL+SHIFT+v, which many Linux users already know from using gnome-terminal and its derivatives.

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I don’t think copying has a lot to do with the input method. It’s a function of the application. It’s just that the workaround found itself into Squeekboard.

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but this version isn’t yet packaged in PureOS byzantium.

@amosbatto this version is now in PureOS landing repos, so it should reach Byzantium in the next 6 days. Besides improving the scrollback and some other goodies, it also introduces support for tabs.

kgx
kgx720×1440 94.5 KB

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@dcz,
I filed a kgx issue report about this problem:

However, Alexander Mikhaylenko said that it is a Squeekboard issue, so I added a comment about this problem for Squeekboard:

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