I have three different terminal versions

[RedRat]

I recently made a virgin install of 12.04LTS on my HP machine--no other OS is present other than Ubuntu. I note that I now have three different "Terminals" installed. This is running Gnome Classic.

Terminal 1. Applications>Accessories>Terminal
Terminal 2. Applications>System Tools>UXTerm
Terminal 3. Applications>System Tools>XTerm

Now all of these have slightly different properties. For example, I had installed on my Desktop a file called "tmp" which is was locked (little lock symbol), I was not the owner. When I opened the standard Terminal (Terminal 1 above) and cd to Desktop and put in the command 'ls' it did not show the 'tmp' folder, however both Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 did show it. There were some other slight differences.

What gives with each of these terminals??? How can you make them show all folders regardless of who owns them?

BTW, I got the "tmp" folder while attempting to install a Lexmark driver. I got outstanding help from the folks at Lexmark in finally getting the driver installed and shout-out to their Linux person! Very impressed in getting a problematic driver installed.

[ads52]

What gives with each of these terminals???

There are many more to chose from:

andrew@corinth:~$ apt-cache search terminal | grep emulator
gnome-terminal - GNOME terminal emulator application
gnome-terminal-data - Data files for the GNOME terminal emulator
konsole - X terminal emulator
konsole-dbg - debugging symbols for the KDE X terminal emulator
libvte-2.90-9 - Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 3.0 - runtime files
libvte-2.90-common - Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 3.0 - common files
libvte-2.90-dev - Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 3.0 - development files
libvte-2.90-doc - Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 3.0 - documentation
libvte-common - Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 2.x - common files
libvte-dev - Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 2.0 - development files
libvte-doc - Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 2.x - documentation
libvte9 - Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 2.0 - runtime files
xterm - X terminal emulator
aterm - Afterstep XVT - a VT102 emulator for the X window system
aterm-ml - Afterstep XVT - a VT102 emulator for the X window system
evilvte - lightweight terminal emulator based on VTE
fbterm - A fast framebuffer based terminal emulator for Linux
kterm - Multi-lingual terminal emulator for X
kxterm - CERNLIB data analysis suite - KUIP terminal emulator
lxterminal - desktop independent vte-based terminal emulator
mrxvt - lightweight multi-tabbed X terminal emulator - complete version
mrxvt-cjk - lightweight multi-tabbed X terminal emulator - CJK version
mrxvt-common - lightweight multi-tabbed X terminal emulator - common files
mrxvt-mini - lightweight multi-tabbed X terminal emulator - minimalistic version
pterm - PuTTY terminal emulator
roxterm - Multi-tabbed GTK/VTE terminal emulator
rxvt - VT102 terminal emulator for the X Window System
rxvt-beta - VT102 terminal emulator for the X Window System
rxvt-ml - multi-lingual VT102 terminal emulator for the X Window System
rxvt-unicode - RXVT-like terminal emulator with Unicode support
rxvt-unicode-256color - multi-lingual terminal emulator with Unicode support for X11
rxvt-unicode-lite - RXVT-like terminal emulator with basic Unicode support
rxvt-unicode-ml - multi-lingual terminal emulator -- transitional package
s3dvt - 3d terminal emulator for s3d
sakura - simple but powerful libvte-based terminal emulator
slrnface - shows X-Faces from a newsposting on an X11 terminal emulator
stjerm - lightweight terminal emulator
termit - Simple terminal emulator based on vte library, embedded lua
tilda - terminal emulator with first person shooter console likeness
vala-terminal - Terminal emulator for mobile devices
vtprint - Prints to term emulator via ANSI codes
xfce4-terminal - Xfce terminal emulator
xfce4-terminal-dbg - Xfce terminal emulator - debugging symbols
xtel - X emulator of the French Minitel
xttitle - Changes X terminal emulator window titles
xvt - X terminal-emulator similar to xterm, but smaller
yakuake - a Quake-style terminal emulator based on KDE Konsole technology
yeahconsole - drop-down X terminal emulator wrapper
andrew@corinth:~$

Have a look at my best friend sakura .

[itcotbtoemik]

...which doesn't answer his question. Offhand, I'd think that the directory doesn't show up due to color differences (except that my recollection of the color schemes hints that's unlikely). The symbol itself would be buried away in a dot-file.

[itcotbtoemik]

More likely (noticed originally as a Konsole (mis)feature), the terminal may be starting in some other directory than the user's home directory, e.g., the Desktop. That's easily checked by using "pwd".

[RedRat]

More likely (noticed originally as a Konsole (mis)feature), the terminal may be starting in some other directory than the user's home directory, e.g., the Desktop. That's easily checked by using "pwd".

In all cases I moved to the Desktop and did 'ls'. Very definitely the "tmp" locked folder did not display AND I could not use cd to move to that directory. I got back an error that said "no such directory". However, the other terminals showed it and I could move to those terminals.

I am impressed with all the kinds of terminals that are available, but I stand by my original question: What are these extra terminals for? OK, I am coming from 8.04 and there was only one terminal and I thought that all terminals were the same. Clearly this is not the case.

[itcotbtoemik]

The reason for xterm/uxterm showing up is mentioned here:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=645736

Essentially, the xterm icons show up in the menus because the safe-settings use xterm (gnome-terminal hasn't been found suitable for that purpose).

As for why the locked folders don't show up in gnome-terminal - perhaps that's a "feature" (though it would only be possible to tell if there were documentation).

[ads52]

I am impressed with all the kinds of terminals that are available, but I stand by my original question: What are these extra terminals for? OK, I am coming from 8.04 and there was only one terminal and I thought that all terminals were the same. Clearly this is not the case.

For many users these days the only terminal emulator of any interest will be the default and even then it will be treated with some trepidation. Other terminal emulators are failed projects that have fallen by the wayside while others have been created by developers hoping to improve on old models. For terminal users the rich offering is a great thing .

If you were interested in exploring you could do worse than explore some of the current frontrunners such as Terminator, Sakura, Guake / Yakuake and RoxTerm. Otherwise simply stick to the default if it meets your needs....