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Add to SafariWhen comparing KiTTY vs xterm, the Slant community recommends KiTTY for most people. In the question“What are the best terminal emulators for UNIX-like systems?” KiTTY is ranked 2nd while xterm is ranked 13th. The most important reason people chose KiTTY is:
- Sessions filter - Shortcuts for pre-defined command - The session launcher - Automatic logon script - URL hyperlinks - Running a locally saved script on a remote session - Send to tray - Transparency - Quick start of a duplicate session - SSH Handler: Internet Explorer integration - pscp.exe and WinSCP integration - New command-line options
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Includes additional features over PuTTy
- Sessions filter
- Shortcuts for pre-defined command
- The session launcher
- Automatic logon script
- URL hyperlinks
- Running a locally saved script on a remote session
- Send to tray
- Transparency
- Quick start of a duplicate session
- SSH Handler: Internet Explorer integration
- pscp.exe and WinSCP integration
- New command-line options
Pro Startup sessions
Support start-up sessions which allow you to specify the window/tab layout, working directories, and programs to run on startup.
Pro Source Code Available
Source code is available so you could modify or review changes.
Pro Can store login credentials
Ability to store passwords/passphrases locally.
Pro Clickable URLs
URLs are parsed and can be clicked.
Pro Auto login script
Automatic processing of commands after conncetion was made.
Pro True Color support
Supports True Color, so software like Vim can display a really nice pallet.
Pro Portable version available
Pro Background image
Ability to overlay the terminal background with an image.
Pro Unicode
Uses Unicode for the best character compatibility.
Pro Lightweight
Xterm is a very lightweight terminal. It requires few resources, allowing it to run well even on lower-end machines.
Pro Used in almost every Linux distribution
If you master xterm, you won't have to learn another tty, since it is in almost every Linux distribution.
Pro Stable, well-tested
Pro Standard with X Window system
Xterm is installed as standard software with the X Window system, and is there even when installing other terminal emulators.
Pro Supports sixel images
Pro Shows full characters for wide fallback fonts
Many terminal emulators that deal with wider fallback fonts (i.e. double-wide characters in CJK fonts) truncate display of wide characters, show Unicode "missing glyph" characters, or simply fail to display the characters at all. XTerm is "smart" enough to simply take up the extra space needed to show such wide characters.
Pro In about 30 years, it had only one issue, and that was fixed quickly
Pro It is fast and responsive
See this.
Pro Many modern terminals emulate xterm
Many terminal applications, such as OS X's Terminal.app and iTerm2 (among others), all claim xterm or xterm- variants as their $TERM and aim for support of xterm's escape sequences. Many command-line applications will assume or even hard-code escape-sequences and behavior for xterm and those terminals emulating it.
Pro Configurable via Xresources
X Toolkit resources and xrdb predates what is currently called "theme". Although one needs to read man, mitigates most listed cons
Cons
Con No centralized configuration
Each session holds its own configuration of all features. This means that if one wants to change a configuration common to all sessions (say, the terminal font), it has to be changed in each stored session separately.
A better solution would be to have a default configuration and store only the changed elements for each session (both configurations would be merged, with e priority on the specific one).
Con No tabbed sessions
No built-in support for tabbed sessions. Requires an add-on.
Con No mouse support in alternative screens
Like vim, less, etc.
Con No native transparency
Xterm does not natively support transparency (though it can be emulated if needs be).
Con Bad defaults
Very small default size. No way to know to how to configure size.
Con No tabs
Con It blinks
If it blinks for you too, you can try this: man xterm and then press Shift+G.
Con Has few dependencies
Has dependencies like xbitmaps.
Con Historical source code
The stories behind terminal emulation beyond their classical representatives (of which xterm is simply the most long-lived) are somewhere inbetween subtly irritating to downright surreal.
