A terminal emulator is a software application that allows you to use a terminal in a graphical interface. Because most individuals utilize a graphical user interface (GUI) for their day-to-day computing needs, majority Linux server administrators will have to use a terminal emulator. Xterm, GNOME Terminal, Tmux, KDE Konsole, and others are examples of terminal emulators in Linux.
Alacritty Terminal
Alacritty is a Linux terminal emulator that is both contemporary and speedy. It renders with a Graphical Processing Unit -GPU, ensuring efficiency that would not be possible otherwise. Alacritty is a cross-platform, free, open-source application that runs on Linux, BSD, MacOS and Windows. It achieves a flexible range of capabilities with great performance by integrating with other apps rather than reimplementing their functionality.
Features of Alacritty Terminal
Alacritty terminal have the following cool features:
- Allows you to scroll back and forth in Alacritty’s viewport using the keyboard. It also acts as a starting point for other services like search. Ctrl+shift+space can be used to launch it.
- You can scan Alacritty’s scrollback buffer to find anything. Use ctrl+shift+f to search ahead, or ctrl+shift+b to search backwards.
- Cursor motion is set to imitate vi by default, but it can be changed to suit your needs.
- The ability to select and copy to the clipboard is an important feature of vi mode. By default, selection is begun with v, while copy is started with y. From vi mode, you can access all of the mouse selections, including semantic Alt + v, line shift + v, and block selection ctrl + v.
- Use the right mouse to widen your selection once you’ve made it. Triple-clicking selects lines, while double-clicking extends the selection semantically. It will transition to block selection mode if you hold ctrl while extending the selection.
- Use / for forward search and ? for reverse search in vi mode. Allows one to move freely and fast backward. The keybinding operations SearchStart and SearchEnd can be used to jump to the beginning or end of a match.
- By pressing Enter in vi mode, you can open URLs. When you move the vi pointer over urls, they become underlined.
- You won’t be able to move around freely here, but you can still use Enter and Shift+Enter to jump between matches. You can exit the search by pressing Escape, and the active match will stay selected for copying.
Install Alacritty Terminal on Ubuntu 24.04|22.04|20.04
We shall perform the installation of Alacritty terminal on Ubuntu by building it from source.
Ensure git package is installed on your Linux system
sudo apt update -y && sudo apt install git -y You must first clone the source code before compiling Alacritty:
git clone https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty.git
cd alacrittyInstall official compiler for the Rust programming language
$ curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
.....
Welcome to Rust!
This will download and install the official compiler for the Rust
programming language, and its package manager, Cargo.
Rustup metadata and toolchains will be installed into the Rustup
home directory, located at:
/home/frank/.rustup
This can be modified with the RUSTUP_HOME environment variable.
The Cargo home directory located at:
/home/frank/.cargo
This can be modified with the CARGO_HOME environment variable.
The cargo, rustc, rustup and other commands will be added to
Cargo's bin directory, located at:
/home/frank/.cargo/bin
This path will then be added to your PATH environment variable by
modifying the profile files located at:
/home/frank/.profile
/home/frank/.bashrc
You can uninstall at any time with rustup self uninstall and
these changes will be reverted.
Current installation options:
default host triple: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
default toolchain: stable (default)
profile: default
modify PATH variable: yes
1) Proceed with installation (default)
2) Customize installation
3) Cancel installation
>1
info: profile set to 'default'
info: default host triple is x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
info: syncing channel updates for 'stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu'
686.2 KiB / 686.2 KiB (100 %) 327.5 KiB/s in 3s ETA: 0s
info: latest update on 2022-01-20, rust version 1.58.1 (db9d1b20b 2022-01-20)
info: downloading component 'cargo'
6.2 MiB / 6.2 MiB (100 %) 956.5 KiB/s in 8s ETA: 0s
info: downloading component 'clippy'
2.5 MiB / 2.5 MiB (100 %) 1.0 MiB/s in 2s ETA: 0s
info: downloading component 'rust-docs'
18.9 MiB / 18.9 MiB (100 %) 1.5 MiB/s in 22s ETA: 0s
info: downloading component 'rust-std'
25.0 MiB / 25.0 MiB (100 %) 2.0 MiB/s in 24s ETA: 0s
info: downloading component 'rustc'
53.2 MiB / 53.2 MiB (100 %) 1.6 MiB/s in 31s ETA: 0s
info: downloading component 'rustfmt'
3.9 MiB / 3.9 MiB (100 %) 1.1 MiB/s in 3s ETA: 0s
info: installing component 'cargo'
info: installing component 'clippy'
info: installing component 'rust-docs'
18.9 MiB / 18.9 MiB (100 %) 4.3 MiB/s in 3s ETA: 0s
info: installing component 'rust-std'
25.0 MiB / 25.0 MiB (100 %) 7.9 MiB/s in 3s ETA: 0s
info: installing component 'rustc'
53.2 MiB / 53.2 MiB (100 %) 8.5 MiB/s in 7s ETA: 0s
info: installing component 'rustfmt'
info: default toolchain set to 'stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu'
stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu installed - rustc 1.58.1 (db9d1b20b 2022-01-20)
Rust is installed now. Great!
To get started you may need to restart your current shell.
This would reload your PATH environment variable to include
Cargo's bin directory ($HOME/.cargo/bin).
To configure your current shell, run:
source $HOME/.cargo/envUpdate Rust:
source $HOME/.cargo/env && rustup default nightly && rustup updateInstall other required dependencies.
sudo apt install -y cmake pkg-config libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig1-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev libxkbcommon-dev python3 gzipRun the command below while in the Alacritty directory to construct the Alacritty terminal emulator on Linux.
$ cargo build --releaseSample Output:
Creating Alacritty Desktop Entry
Most Linux variants allow you to add desktop entries to your system menus. By executing the following commands it will allow you to create a desktop shortcut for Alacritty:
sudo cp target/release/alacritty /usr/local/bin
sudo cp extra/logo/alacritty-term.svg /usr/share/pixmaps/Alacritty.svg
sudo desktop-file-install extra/linux/Alacritty.desktop
sudo update-desktop-databaseInstall Alacritty Manual Page
Alacritty manual pages can be installed as follows:
sudo apt install scdoc
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/share/man/man1
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/share/man/man5
scdoc < extra/man/alacritty.1.scd | gzip -c | sudo tee /usr/local/share/man/man1/alacritty.1.gz > /dev/null
scdoc < extra/man/alacritty-msg.1.scd | gzip -c | sudo tee /usr/local/share/man/man1/alacritty-msg.1.gz > /dev/null
scdoc < extra/man/alacritty.5.scd | gzip -c | sudo tee /usr/local/share/man/man5/alacritty.5.gz > /dev/null
scdoc < extra/man/alacritty-bindings.5.scd | gzip -c | sudo tee /usr/local/share/man/man5/alacritty-bindings.5.gz > /dev/nullAlacritty Shell Completions
Install the given shell completions to get automated completions for Alacritty’s flags and arguments.
Bash
You can source the extra/completions/alacritty.bash file in your ~/.bashrc file to install the completions for bash. If you don’t want to delete alacritty’s source folder, you can execute the following command:
echo "source $(pwd)/extra/completions/alacritty.bash" >> ~/.bashrcElse, copy it to the ~/.bash_completion folder and use it as follows:
mkdir -p ~/.bash_completion
cp extra/completions/alacritty.bash ~/.bash_completion/alacritty
echo "source ~/.bash_completion/alacritty" >> ~/.bashrcZsh
The extra/completions/_alacritty file can be placed in any directory referenced by $fpath to install the zsh completions. If you don’t already have one in your ~/.zshrc, you can create one using the following command:
mkdir -p ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zsh_functions
echo 'fpath+=${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zsh_functions' >> ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zshrcThere after copy the completion file to this directory:
cp extra/completions/_alacritty ${ZDOTDIR:-~}/.zsh_functions/_alacrittyFish
Run the following command to install the fish completions.
mkdir -p $fish_complete_path[1]
cp extra/completions/alacritty.fish $fish_complete_path[1]/alacritty.fishUsing Alacritty Terminal Emulator
On your system application menu, search Alacritty terminal and click to launch:
Just like any other terminal, you can use Alacritty as shown below:
Conclusion
This concludes our discussion on installing, configuring and using Alacritty terminal emulator on Ubuntu Linux systems. The Alacritty terminal emulator has been successfully installed and setup on Ubuntu 24.04|22.04|20.04. Enjoy using it!
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