Re: [BLUG] What size terminal do you use?

On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 02:52:52PM +0000, Mark Krenz wrote:
> Quick poll. If you use some specific size for your terminal (xterm,
> aterm, gnome-terminal, konsole, etc.), what size do you use and why?
> Also, curious about what terminal you use specifically these days.

I currently use Konsole.

I have the ncurses-term package installed, so my TERM is set to
"konsole". I like well defined terminal characteristics, so I don't
like terminals to use 'xterm' unless they're 100% xterm compatible.
Neither gnome-terminal nor konsole is 100% compatible. (To be 100%
compatible you need (1) Tektronix mode, and (2) to fail under the same
circumstances as xterm.) Additionally, using the stock 'xterm' requires
that apps either ignore the terminfo characteristics or are limited to
16 colors. A proper terminfo would list whether you support extended
colors like xterm-256 or xterm-88.

I enjoy roguelike games, and poorly defined terminals are the bane of
nice roguelike games.

In the office, I use terminals that are 24/25 rows, and either 80
columns or a little more to fill. (10 pt. font, usually two windows at
the bottom of the screen, with a browser and IRC/IM/etc client filling
the upper half of that monitor)

At home, where the light is more variable and the distance to the laptop
tends to also be more variable than my seating at work, I have settings
which are designed to be gentle on my eyes: Monospace font at 14 pt,
between 80 and about 94 columns (I rarely maximize the width), and it is
usually maximized vertically giving me 37 rows.

I also leverage custom color sets, due to my inability to easily read
dark blue on black (which always seems painfully popular in color
apps). I use custom dark-background colors, and a custom inverted
color set. The inverted color set is easier on my eyes in low-power
settings on my laptop, (I can read it with the display set to dimmest
with plenty of ambient light), and is specifically designed so that I
can continue using apps which become illegible if you simply swap the
default foreground/background colors.

Back in my youth, I'd use SVGATextMode to get Linux consoles in hi-res
text modes. These days I figure if I'm not kind on my eyes early,
they'll only give me more trouble later.

While working, I use tabs and more than one terminal emulator, but when
I'm off-work I'm 100% GNU Screen with a single terminal emulator.

Cheers,
Steven Black

_______________________________________________
BLUG mailing list
BLUG@linuxfan.com
http://mailman.cs.indiana.edu/mailman/listinfo/blug