man page for starting terminal

[DanPerecky]

I am using Ubuntu 18.04.2 and would like to learn more about terminal and different options for it when starting.

I am trying to open terminal with more columns / rows.

Is it gnome-terminal? or just terminal?

Thanks for your help in advance...

[GhX6GZMB]

I'm not certain about what you mean.
The terminal is normally started with Ctrl-Alt-T.

[deadflowr]

It's man gnome-terminal.
But to set a custom size open preferences in gnome terminal and set in the Text section in Profile sub section.

Preferences should be a menu option. (Should show with a right click)

[DanPerecky]

Oh yeah... Thanks... I found what you were talking about: In Edit Profile | Checking on: Use custom default terminal size...

Thanks a Lot..

BTW... These do not work....
Tried:
prompt:~$ man gnome-terminal
No manual entry for gnome-terminal

prompt:~$ man Gnome-Terminal
No manual entry for Gnome-Terminal

prompt:~$ man GNOME-TERMINAL
No manual entry for GNOME-TERMINAL

[yetimon_64]

Is it gnome-terminal? or just terminal?

"gnome-terminal" is correct.

...
BTW... These do not work....
Tried:
prompt:~$ man gnome-terminal
No manual entry for gnome-terminal
...

On ubuntu mate 18.04 with gnome terminal installed here that command works.

Check that gnome terminal is actually installed on your system with ...

apt-cache policy gnome-terminal

My installation...

yetiman:~ $  apt-cache policy gnome-terminal
gnome-terminal:
  Installed: 3.28.2-1ubuntu1~18.04.1
  Candidate: 3.28.2-1ubuntu1~18.04.1 ...

[TheFu]

"terminal" is like saying "car"

I want to learn more about car.
There are many different cars. There are many different terminals. Each has slightly different features, but they all have 4 wheels and usually have a steering wheel, and engine.

I'd guess there are at least 10 popular terminal programs. I'm not a fan of the Gnome variant, which seems bloated to me. lxterm or aterm seem reasonable for capabilities and bloat. Most of the time, I use a pure xterm, but it doesn't support utf8, which could be an issue for some sites/people. xterm's don't have a menubar, so you'd need to use the different mouse click methods and modifier keys to see the different menus. OTOH, xterm's honor all the expect .Xresource settings like font choices, sizes, using a font-server, secure terminal to prevent copy/paste by other X11 clients, etc.

Regardless, find the terminal program that works for your needs. It is a personal decision, but don't feel like you HAVE to use gnome-terminal. You don't.

If you want to learn more about the CLI/shell interface, here's a free, no-hassle book: http://linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php
If you want to learn more about bash shell, the shell you are most likely using, besides a quick review of the bash manpage, check out https://github.com/jlevy/the-art-of-command-line

People new to Unix systems often have little idea how powerful their shell is.

If you want to automate stuff, learning a tiny bit of bash programming is highly useful. Search for
"Beginning Bash Scripting Guide" && "Advanced Bash Scripting Guide"
A 5 line script is probably my average length in bash. Little, simple, needs.

[DanPerecky]

"gnome-terminal" is correct.


On ubuntu mate 18.04 with gnome terminal installed here that command works.

Check that gnome terminal is actually installed on your system with ...

apt-cache policy gnome-terminal

My installation...

yetiman:~ $  apt-cache policy gnome-terminal
gnome-terminal:
  Installed: 3.28.2-1ubuntu1~18.04.1
  Candidate: 3.28.2-1ubuntu1~18.04.1 ...

I go to the menu bar at the top, and click on MATE Terminal.

When I issue the command, this is the results:

s855-ubuntu@s855ubuntu-VB:~$ apt-cache policy gnome-terminal
gnome-terminal:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 3.28.2-1ubuntu1~18.04.1
Version table:
3.28.2-1ubuntu1~18.04.1 500
500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 Packages
3.28.1-1ubuntu1 500
500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages

So how do I know what version terminal I'm even running?

[DanPerecky]

TheFu

Thank you for the links....

[CelticWarrior]

So how do I know what version terminal I'm even running?

You're actually running 'mate-terminal', the default in Ubuntu-MATE. Replace all the commands above for the proper name to confirm version.

[TheFu]

I go to the menu bar at the top, and click on MATE Terminal.

When I issue the command, this is the results:


So how do I know what version terminal I'm even running?

Check the process table. That's the table maintained by the OS of all running processes.
You can do that anyway you like. I'm old and have an alias - psg - which stands for ps-grep.

alias psg='ps -eaf | grep $*'

Use it like this:

$ psg term
tf        3755  3593  0 Jan26 ?        00:00:00 xterm -class UXTerm -title uxterm -u8 -sb -geometry 80x25+770+340 -u8 -fs 16 -fa Monospace -sb -fg green -bg black
tf       23020     1  0 08:29 pts/1    00:00:00 xterm -class UXTerm -title uxterm -u8 -sb -geometry 80x25+0+0 -u8 -fs 16 -fa Monospace -sb -fg green -bg black -e ssh -X hadar
tf       23021     1  0 08:29 pts/1    00:00:00 xterm -class UXTerm -title uxterm -u8 -sb -geometry 80x25+760+355 -u8 -fs 16 -fa Monospace -sb -fg green -bg black -e ssh -X romulus
tf       23022     1  0 08:29 pts/1    00:00:00 xterm -class UXTerm -title uxterm -u8 -sb -geometry 80x25+760+0 -u8 -fs 16 -fa Monospace -sb -fg green -bg black -e ssh -X lubuntu
tf       23023     1  0 08:29 pts/1    00:00:00 xterm -class UXTerm -title uxterm -u8 -sb -geometry 80x25+830+60 -u8 -fs 16 -fa Monospace -sb -fg green -bg black -e ssh -X istar
tf       23936  3956  0 08:31 pts/1    00:00:00 grep term

There are newer (relatively) tools for searching the process table. pgrep is one. There are others. I have a few other "terms" running, but the process name doesn't have 'term' in it. They are rxvt-unicode processes. Sometimes I need utf8 support too.

I suspect that PDF book will have a chapter on this stuff.