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Add to BraveWhen comparing VirtualBox w/ any Linux distro + Terminator vs Alacritty, the Slant community recommends Alacritty for most people. In the question“What are the best terminal emulators for Windows?” Alacritty is ranked 12th while VirtualBox w/ any Linux distro + Terminator is ranked 27th. The most important reason people chose Alacritty is:
Written in Rust with a philosophy focusing on speed and simplicity, Alacritty is one of the fastest terminal emulators out there.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Runs Pre-configured virtual machines
Allows you to run your virtual machines pre-configured by you or others.
Virtual Box versions for:
-- Windows 7/8/10
-- All Linux installations
-- MAC OS x
-- Solaris 10/11
Virtual OSs include:
-- Oracle Linux 5/6/7.x (RHEL clones)
-- Solaris10/11
-- Occassionally a Windows Beta
Oracle itself provides many free VMs, pre-configured with various software stacks and hands-on lab materials for learning, geared toward. These have helped me earn three of my Oracle certifications:
-- Oracle Database development
-- Oracle DBA
-- MySQL development
-- Java Standard/Enterprise development
-- Big data
-- Webcenter portal & others
Pre-installed software in or more of the various stacks includes:
-- Oracle Database 11/12
-- JDK/Eclipse
-- Enterprise Mgr
-- MySQL
-- WebLogic
-- Cloudera, etc.
Pro Supports modern shells
Whether you prefer zsh, bash, or fish, Linux will support it.
Pro Isolated from Windows
VirtualBox provides almost total isolation from Windows running underneath it, removing a lot of security issues.
Pro Free / Libre Software
While the OS underneath it is proprietary and does spy on you or actively violate your freedom, so to speak, you can still have a little piece of mind knowing that VirtualBox (your Linux distro and shell of choice) as well as Terminator are all FOSS.
Pro Blazing fast rendering with GPU-accelerated
Written in Rust with a philosophy focusing on speed and simplicity, Alacritty is one of the fastest terminal emulators out there.
Pro Looks good
Alacritty looks very slick on Linux, especially with GNOME or i3.
Pro Comprehensive font options
Alacritty can be configured to adjust line spacing (height), letter spacing (width), and individual character horizontal/vertical positions.
Pro Simple configuration
The configuration file is very well made and easy to use. You can fine tune your preferences to perfection in a matter of minutes.
Pro Has support for image previews in w3m and ranger
Pro Has text ref-low when window is resized
Cons
Con Install a whole operating system for one program
You would need to install the entire Linux distribution just for one single program.
Con Slightly slower than just running Linux
The Windows + VirtualBox layer introduces some overhead that wouldn't be present if Linux were installed directly on the machine.
Con Cannot into ligatures
Alacritty not support ligatures in Fira Code, Iosevka etc.
Con Sacrifices basic features for raw performance.
The Suzuki GSXR of terminals. Or your ditzy, blonde high school cheerleader; fast and pretty but not a lot going on under the hood.
Eschews a negative developmental philosophy towards including said functionality, with the official reason cited in project documentation as "Not within the realm of a terminal emulator" and ostensibly, "best left up to other tools such as terminal multiplexers" [such as screen or tmux]. Which is unfortunate when you factor in speed against terminal with the functionality built in vs their reliance on 3rd party tools:
tmux on alacritty: 'find /usr' time: 3.234s, cpu: 72%
tmux on konsole: find /usr' time: 1.777s, cpu: 96%
See issue here.
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