How to choose an alternative OS X terminal

From ArticleWorld

As we mentioned in other guides here on ArticleWorld, Apple's OS X has a strong Unix heritage. Including many command-line tools, it comes with a Terminal application which is usually well-suited for quick adventures like executing a script or installing a port file.

However, if you use the terminal very often, you may find that the Terminal that comes pre-installed with OS X is somewhat limited and thus rather painful to use in some situations. You can, for example, split a Terminal window in two, but what if you need to have more screens at your disposal?

Many developers have written alternatives to the Apple's Terminal (usually referred to as Terminal.app). If you spend a lot of time on your terminal or want to have it looking more fancy, you may want to give them a look.

Alternatives

• iTerm: http://iterm.sourceforge.net/ . iTerm is a powerful terminal emulator, probably familiar to you if you come from the Unix world of KDE or Gnome users. It supports vt100, ANSI, xterm, xterm-color and rxvt emulation modes. What sets it apart from Terminal.app is its ability to use tabs: the same window can include more than one session, with sessions that can be switched using a set of tabs placed above the command window. It also supports "Bookmarks", allowing you to restore a certain session (with its own set of options and environment variables) with a single click. iTerm includes a lot of functions, but it may be useless to install it if you do not use them all.

• GLterm: http://www.pollet.net/GLterm/ . GLterm will probably be your choice if you still use curses-based applications like mc. Terminal.app does not support some special characters, thus making it difficult to use with some applications. GLterm uses X11 fonts, rendering them using graphical acceleration features. Therefore, redrawing should be much faster than with other terminals. At the same time though, if you are using OS X on an x86 system that is not supported (i.e. manufactured) by Apple and you do not have access to accelerated graphics, it may be slow and sluggish to use.

• mrxvt : http://materm.sourceforge.net/ is a pretty popular terminal emulator in the Unix world. However, lacking a native OS X Aqua port (at the time of writing at least), it may prove to be somewhat expensive to use (in terms of space) if it is the only X application your are using, as it requires you to have X11 installed. However, if you have been using it for a long of time and are new to the OS X world, it may prove to be a good option. Lack of an Aqua port also means less integration with the operating system.

Choosing one greatly depends on your needs. People switching from older Unix environments (for example, people who have been long-time Solaris users) often prefer mrxvt, since they do have X11 installed anyhow, so that they can run their favorite applications. Users who have come in contact with Unix more recently and used KDE's Konsole or Gnome's gnome-terminal often switch to iTerm. GLterm is also a common choice due to its excellent support for "exotic" characters.

The best bet you can place is simply testing all these applications. The whole range of features is irrelevant: just use what suits you better. As Apple would put it, Think Different.