Sakura - a better distro-agnostic terminal

[figueroa]

Friends, I've lucked into Sakura while looking for a more compact, compatible, easily-configurable, low-dependency terminal program. I highly recommend it. It doesn't waste your screen geography with a menu bar. Right click to access options and configuration. I highly recommend it.

Code: Select all

$ emerge -s sakura
  
[ Results for search key : sakura ]
Searching...
...
*  x11-terms/sakura
      Latest version available: 3.7.0
      Latest version installed: 3.7.0
      Size of files: 64 KiB
      Homepage:      https://www.pleyades.net/david/projects/sakura
      Description:   sakura is a terminal emulator based on GTK and VTE
      License:       GPL-2

This site will help you with usage hints and well-described configuration options.

[Dr.Willy]

How is it better than, say, st or alacritty?

[figueroa]

How is it better than, say, st or alacritty?

I've never used st nor alacrity. However, alacrity is huge by comparison. I note that st is a bit smaller than sakura, and appears to be less complete on its own (no scroll bar). I guess you have to buy it to see what's in it.

ADDED: A nice feature of Sakura, is when you type "clear" at the shell prompt, the scrollback buffer is cleared. That doesn't happen in the lxterminal, which is what I have been using for too many years.

[389292]

I've tested most of them. st and urxvt are undisputed champions of a reason (although they are not perfect, but they are less worse than others).
Alacritty has good rendering and utf8 support, but is bloated, slow, written in rust, and changes config declarations too often.

[Dr.Willy]

I've never used st nor alacrity. However, alacrity is huge by comparison. I note that st is a bit smaller than sakura, and appears to be less complete on its own (no scroll bar). I guess you have to buy it to see what's in it.

Huge by what metric? Window size? The only reason sakura is "small" is that its a wrapper around x11-libs/vte

Code: Select all

~ # tokei vte-0.60.3/ sakura-3.7.0/
===============================================================================
 Language            Files        Lines         Code     Comments       Blanks
===============================================================================
 Autoconf                6          162           92           46           24
 C                       6         4769         3663          403          703
 C Header               18         3539         2084          928          527
 CMake                   2          112           86            1           25
 C++                    38        45538        29317        10693         5528
 C++ Header             49         9148         5453         2465         1230
 Markdown                1           61            0           43           18
 Meson                  10         1618         1151          215          252
 Shell                  18          828          575          167           86
 SVG                     1          498          497            1            0
 Plain Text             11         2755            0         2429          326
 Vala                    1         1099          866           67          166
 Vim script              1           68           66            1            1
 XML                     4          231          151           65           15
===============================================================================
 Total                 166        70426        44001        17524         8901
===============================================================================

Code: Select all

~ # tokei rxvt-unicode-9.22/
===============================================================================
 Language            Files        Lines         Code     Comments       Blanks
===============================================================================
 Autoconf                8         5955         5533          184          238
 C                      37        27227        19961         2843         4423
 C Header               70        45833        43222         1198         1413
 Perl                    8         3004         2197           55          752
 Shell                   2          525          358          104           63
 Plain Text              1         1787            0         1450          337
===============================================================================
 Total                 126        84331        71271         5834         7226
===============================================================================

Code: Select all

~ # tokei alacritty-0.6.0/
===============================================================================
 Language            Files        Lines         Code     Comments       Blanks
===============================================================================
 BASH                    1           57           40           11            6
 Fish                    1           90           81            3            6
 GLSL                    4          117           80           11           26
 JSON                  120          120          120            0            0
 Makefile                1           66           54            0           12
 Markdown                7         1635            0         1253          382
 RPM Specfile            1           58           51            0            7
 Shell                   4          196          156           24           16
 SVG                     6         2879         2879            0            0
 Plain Text              1          779            0          721           58
 TOML                    4          137          117            2           18
 XML                     1           35           32            3            0
 YAML                    1          765            0          697           68
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Rust                   61        22604        18073          972         3559
 |- Markdown            54         1450           10         1285          155
 (Total)                          24054        18083         2257         3714
===============================================================================
 Total                 213        30988        21693         4982         4313
===============================================================================

In terms of "bloat", … urxvt vs alacritty is whatever.

Code: Select all

~ # tokei st-git/
===============================================================================
 Language            Files        Lines         Code     Comments       Blanks
===============================================================================
 C                       2         4667         3858          281          528
 C Header                5         1160          783          282           95
 Makefile                2           92           56           14           22
===============================================================================
 Total                   9         5919         4697          577          645
===============================================================================

[figueroa]

Huge by what metric? Window size? The only reason sakura is "small" is that its a wrapper around x11-libs/vte

Alacrity is huge based on the size of it's source file compared to sakura, st, and most others. Size was just an observation I made in response to your question. But, what's your point? The metrics you provided are not that interesting. I tried sakura while looking for a better terminal than lxterminal. I like it. It's meeting my needs.

What is your favorite x11-term, and why do you use it and/or recommend it to others?

[mike155]

My favorite terminal is (or better: was?) konsole.

I just wanted to install it on a new server. Below is what portage tells me...

Now that's huge!

Code: Select all

emerge -pv konsole

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtchooser-66::gentoo  USE="-test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] media-libs/libogg-1.3.4::gentoo  USE="-static-libs" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] acct-group/lp-0::gentoo  0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] acct-group/lpadmin-0::gentoo  0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] app-text/poppler-data-0.4.10::gentoo  0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] app-dicts/myspell-de-2017.01.12::gentoo  27,054 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] app-dicts/myspell-en-20170101::gentoo  5,822 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] app-text/qpdf-10.0.4:0/28::gentoo  USE="ssl -doc -examples -libressl -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-perl/IPC-System-Simple-1.250.0::gentoo  USE="-test" 30 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-perl/File-BaseDir-0.70.0::gentoo  USE="-test" 10 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-perl/File-DesktopEntry-0.220.0::gentoo  USE="-test" 18 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] app-text/libpaper-1.1.24_p5::gentoo  48 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] media-libs/jbig2dec-0.18:0/0.18::gentoo  USE="png -static-libs -test" 146 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-libs/gumbo-0.10.1::gentoo  USE="-doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] x11-libs/xcb-util-keysyms-0.4.0-r2::gentoo  USE="-static-libs" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] x11-libs/xcb-util-renderutil-0.3.9-r3::gentoo  USE="-static-libs" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] x11-libs/xcb-util-wm-0.4.1-r3::gentoo  USE="-static-libs" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] x11-apps/xprop-1.2.5::gentoo  0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] media-libs/libvorbis-1.3.7::gentoo  USE="-static-libs -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] media-libs/libcanberra-0.30-r5::gentoo  USE="alsa udev -gnome -gstreamer -gtk -gtk3 -oss -pulseaudio -sound -tdb" 312 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] media-fonts/urw-fonts-2.4.9::gentoo  USE="X" 3,124 KiB
[ebuild  NS    ] app-text/docbook-xml-dtd-4.3-r2:4.3::gentoo [4.1.2-r7:4.1.2::gentoo, 4.2-r3:4.2::gentoo, 4.4-r3:4.4::gentoo, 4.5-r2:4.5::gentoo] 82 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-perl/File-MimeInfo-0.280.0::gentoo  USE="-test" 32 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] x11-misc/xdg-utils-1.1.3_p20200220-r1::gentoo  USE="-dbus -doc -gnome" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kf-env-5:5::gentoo  0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/extra-cmake-modules-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] media-libs/openjpeg-2.3.1-r1:2/7::gentoo  USE="-doc -static-libs -test" 2,163 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-libs/double-conversion-3.1.5:0/3::gentoo  6,860 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtcore-5.15.1-r1:5/5.15.1::gentoo  USE="icu systemd -debug -old-kernel -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] app-text/poppler-20.11.0:0/104::gentoo  USE="cairo cxx introspection jpeg jpeg2k lcms png tiff utils -cjk -curl -debug -doc -nss -qt5" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] app-text/mupdf-1.18.0-r2:0/1.18.0::gentoo  USE="X ssl -javascript -libressl -opengl" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtdbus-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="-debug -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtxml-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="-debug -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtnetwork-5.15.1-r1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="ssl -bindist -connman -debug -gssapi -libproxy -libressl -networkmanager -sctp -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/karchive-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtconcurrent-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="-debug -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qttest-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="-debug -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/breeze-icons-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/linguist-tools-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="-debug -qml -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/attica-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kcoreaddons-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -debug -doc (-fam) -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kcodecs-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] app-text/hunspell-1.7.0-r2:0/1.7::gentoo  USE="ncurses nls readline -static-libs" L10N="de en -af -bg -ca -cs -cy -da -de-1901 -el -eo -es -et -fo -fr -ga -gl -he -hr -hu -ia -id -is -it -kk -km -ku -lt -lv -mi -mk -ms -nb -nl -nn -pl -pt -pt-BR -ro -ru -sk -sl -sq -sv -sw -tn -uk -zu" 471 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] net-dns/libidn-1.36:0/12::gentoo  USE="nls -doc -emacs -java -mono" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] x11-libs/gdk-pixbuf-2.40.0:2::gentoo  USE="X introspection jpeg tiff -gtk-doc" 5,383 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-util/gtk-update-icon-cache-3.24.21::gentoo  0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] net-print/cups-2.3.3-r1::gentoo  USE="X acl dbus pam systemd threads usb -debug -kerberos -lprng-compat (-selinux) -ssl -static-libs -xinetd -zeroconf" 7,950 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] app-text/ghostscript-gpl-9.52-r1::gentoo  USE="X cups tiff unicode -dbus -gtk -static-libs" L10N="de (-ja) -ko -zh-CN -zh-TW" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] net-print/cups-filters-1.27.4::gentoo  USE="foomatic jpeg pdf png postscript tiff -dbus -ldap -pclm -perl -static-libs -test -zeroconf" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] x11-libs/xcb-util-0.4.0-r2::gentoo  USE="-static-libs" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] x11-libs/xcb-util-image-0.4.0-r2::gentoo  USE="-static-libs" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] x11-libs/xcb-util-cursor-0.1.3-r3::gentoo  USE="-static-libs" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtgui-5.15.1-r1:5/5.15.1::gentoo  USE="X dbus egl gif jpeg libinput png udev wayland -accessibility -debug -eglfs -evdev -gles2-only -ibus -test -tslib -tuio -vnc -vulkan" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtwidgets-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="X png -debug -gles2-only -gtk -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtdeclarative-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="jit widgets -debug -gles2-only -localstorage -test -vulkan" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtwayland-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="X -debug -test -vulkan" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kconfig-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -dbus -debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/ki18n-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -doc -test" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_8 -python3_7 -python3_9" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kwidgetsaddons-5.74.0-r1:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -debug -designer -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtx11extras-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="-debug -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kitemviews-5.74.0-r1:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -debug -designer -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtprintsupport-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="cups -debug -gles2-only -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtsvg-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="-debug -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtgraphicaleffects-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="-debug -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kauth-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -debug -doc -policykit -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/sonnet-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="hunspell nls -aspell -debug -designer -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/solid-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kwindowsystem-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="X nls -debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kdbusaddons-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="X nls -debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kcompletion-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -debug -designer -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kdoctools-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -debug -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kjobwidgets-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="X nls -debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kguiaddons-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kpty-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kpackage-5.74.0-r1:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -doc -man -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] dev-qt/qtquickcontrols2-5.15.1:5/5.15::gentoo  USE="-debug -test -widgets" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kconfigwidgets-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="man -debug -designer -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kcrash-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/knotifications-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="X nls -dbus -debug -doc -phonon -speech" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kirigami-5.74.0-r1:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -examples -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kservice-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="man -debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kiconthemes-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -designer -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kglobalaccel-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kxmlgui-5.74.0-r2:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -designer -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/ktextwidgets-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -designer -doc -speech -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kbookmarks-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="nls -debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kio-5.74.1-r2:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="X acl -debug -designer -doc -handbook -kerberos -kwallet -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kinit-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="X caps man -debug" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kded-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="man -debug" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/knewstuff-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -doc" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/knotifyconfig-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -doc -phonon" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-frameworks/kparts-5.74.0:5/5.74::gentoo  USE="-debug -doc -test" 0 KiB
[ebuild  N     ] kde-apps/konsole-20.08.3:5::gentoo  USE="X -debug -handbook -test" 0 KiB

Total: 93 packages (92 new, 1 in new slot), Size of downloads: 59,499 KiB

[AlexJGreen]

_

[Hu]

How have we gotten so far into the thread with no one mentioning the venerable x11-terms/xterm, either in praise or in condemnation? It's simple and fast, although it lacks features of some of the terminal emulators mentioned here.

[Anon-E-moose]

I've used rxvt-unicode for years as my main x-term.

[figueroa]

I was happy with konsole back in the days of KDE 2 and 3. That shipped sailed a long time ago.

I found xterm distressing and was please to be able to depclean it away a few months ago. In its defense, it was never my primary terminal program and I probably never had it figured out or configured well.

For 10 years, my primary terminal has been lxterminal, with xfce4-terminal as a hip pocket backup, but have recently enjoyed rendering problems (pretty much solved) and I've been concerned with it's possible lack of a future. When I stumbled upon Sakura, I was looking for a new distro-agnostic option.

[The Main Man]

I've used urxvt for years and then I found st

[charles17]

How have we gotten so far into the thread with no one mentioning the venerable x11-terms/xterm, either in praise or in condemnation? It's simple and fast,

That's the only I am using

although it lacks features of some of the terminal emulators mentioned here.

What "features" am I missing?

[Juippisi]

What is your favorite x11-term, and why do you use it and/or recommend it to others?

As an old user of aterm, urxvt has treated me well over the years. Slowly transitioning towards terminology now, but haven't gotten the colors just as good as with urxvt on my desktop yet. Looks good on my laptop though.

One annoying thing I haven't gotten to work with other terminals, is cycling between terminal tabs with ctrl+tab or shift+tab. Works in urxvt.

Code: Select all

URxvt.perl-ext-common:default,clipboard,matcher,keyboard-select,tabbedex
...
URxvt.keysym.Control-Tab: tabbedex:next_tab
URxvt.keysym.Shift-ISO_Left_Tab: tabbedex:prev_tab

https://github.com/mina86/urxvt-tabbedex

Love how modifiable urxvt still is.

[figueroa]

One annoying thing I haven't gotten to work with other terminals, is cycling between terminal tabs with ctrl+tab or shift+tab. Works in urxvt.

For what it's worth, in sakura, the default to cycle between tabs is CTRL-left-arrow/right-arrow. The keybindings and other configurations are set on-the-fly in .config/sakura/sakura.conf.

[Hu]

although it lacks features of some of the terminal emulators mentioned here.

What "features" am I missing?

As far as I know, xterm cannot run multiple tabs with separate shells in each. I think both gnome-terminal and Konsole have had this capability for many years. xterm does not do the fancy URL-autodetection with click-to-open support that has become popular in some terminals. I'm happy without this one. xterm's color scheme can be configured through X resources, but I am not aware of a way to change the color scheme without restarting. Fans of the complicated terminals might be able to list more features. Personally, I've never missed those features enough to want to use a terminal emulator with a big dependency tree.

[Ant P.]

The reason a few of the other terminals in portage were ever written was xterm's inadequate unicode support. It's unlikely to ever change.

Yes it supports UTF-8, but only far enough to draw ncurses box characters and the like. The rest of it is a whole branch of computer science even gtk3/qt5 struggle with.

[mv]

xterm cannot run multiple tabs with separate shells in each.

Since I have code to run tmux or screen in my startup scripts, this is not a feature I ever missed.

xterm does not do the fancy URL-autodetection with click-to-open support

I am very glad for this security feature.

xterm's color scheme can be configured through X resources, but I am not aware of a way to change the color scheme without restarting.

xterm has the best coler scheme of all terminals (especially for 256 colors with/without bold). Why should you ever want to change it and why on the fly?

Lack of fancy unicode support might be an argument if you need it, though I am not aware what should be missing here: I can enter and display all sort of accents and letters (including cyrillic and chinese) without any problems. For my purposes this is more than enough.

One of the very nice features of xterm is the configurable font-size menu and the configurable-size scrollback buffer with an optical indication where you are in the buffer (though the scrollback-buffer alone is also in tmux and screen).

[sitquietly]

Friends, I've lucked into Sakura while looking for a more compact, compatible, easily-configurable, low-dependency terminal program. I highly recommend it. It doesn't waste your screen geography with a menu bar. Right click to access options and configuration. I highly recommend it.

Yes, I enjoyed sakura for quite a while. I've settled on terminology now. It also is independent of gnome and plasma (it uses the efl library) and is a delight to use. Most folks are probably familiar with it but check the terminology homepage for screenshots that explain its unique capabilities.

[ritzmax72]

Upon changing font from right click menu, the font is not saved in ~/.config/sakura/sakura. How do I make it save changed fonts and other settings?