Installing the best terminal emulator on Pop!_OS 22.04: Terminator

Terminator

Terminator is a popular terminal emulator for Linux, especially favored by power users and developers who work extensively with the command line. Terminator’s main attraction lies in its flexibility and advanced features like split screens, tabs, and extensive keyboard shortcuts. These features make it a versatile tool for managing multiple sessions and running commands concurrently.

It's available in the software repositories of many Linux distributions and can be installed using package managers like APT (for Debian/Ubuntu-based systems) or YUM (for Red Hat/Fedora-based systems).

Let's get down to business

Shall we?

Check your OS (optional)

If you’re unsure about your operating system’s details, you can run a few simple commands to check. These commands give you information about the OS version, kernel, and distribution, which can be useful if you’re following specific installation instructions.

Run these commands in your terminal:

uname -a         # Shows the system kernel version and architecture
hostnamectl      # Displays OS and hostname details
lsb_release -a   # Provides distribution-specific information
cat /etc/os-release # Shows detailed OS version and ID

Output

Knowing your OS version can be helpful when troubleshooting or verifying that Terminator is compatible with your system.

IN this article, we'll focus on PopOs.

Update package info

Before installing any new software, it’s good practice to update your system’s package list to ensure you’re getting the latest version of any software. This step refreshes the local list of available packages and their versions from the configured software repositories.

To update your system’s package information, run:

sudo apt-get update

Running sudo apt-get update is an important step before installing or upgrading packages on your system because it ensures that you have the most up-to-date information about available packages.

Without updating the package index, you might not see the latest versions of software or be able to install new packages that have been added to the repositories since the last update.

Install Terminator

Now that the package information is updated, you’re ready to install Terminator.

sudo apt install terminator

Output

The installation process will download and set up Terminator on your system. You may be prompted to enter your user password to authorize the installation.

verify installation

After installation, it’s always a good idea to verify that Terminator has been correctly installed. This can be done by checking its version and confirming its location in the system’s file paths.

Run the following commands to verify:

terminator --version  # Displays the installed version of Terminator
which terminator      # Shows the location of the Terminator executable

Output

If both commands return results without errors, Terminator is successfully installed and ready to use.

Run

With everything set up, you can launch Terminator by simply typing:

terminator

Output

When Terminator opens, you’ll see a simple interface that allows you to split the terminal screen horizontally or vertically, add new tabs, and customize each window. You can create multiple terminals in one window and manage each independently, making it easy to multitask without switching between different terminal windows.

Done

You’re now ready to use Terminator. With its advanced features, Terminator can help make managing multiple command-line tasks simpler and more efficient.

Celebrate