Opening a terminal [LWN.net]

Opening a terminal

Posted Feb 18, 2012 17:17 UTC (Sat) by boog (subscriber, #30882)
In reply to: Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it) by rahvin
Parent article: Lea: The Unity design process (and how you can play a part in it)

A friend who is a programmer but a first-time user of linux made exactly this complaint - unable to launch a terminal in ubuntu. As a KDE user, I couldn't even help him. Possibly not quite discoverable enough for the chosen target group of people who don't know what ubuntu is?

What is the answer?

to post comments

Opening a terminal

Posted Feb 18, 2012 18:20 UTC (Sat) by sladen (guest, #27402) [Link] (2 responses)

Ctrl+Alt+t

The hot key is the fastest way for a power-user; an intermediate speed method is <super> t e r m <enter>. Once running, one can right-click on the Launcher Terminal icon and tick "Keep in Launcher" to make it omni-present. Note that both Ubuntu and Mac OS X do not show a Terminal by default, but one can find it by searching.

Opening a terminal

Posted Feb 18, 2012 18:29 UTC (Sat) by boog (subscriber, #30882) [Link]

Thank you.

"Note that both Ubuntu and Mac OS X do not show a Terminal by default, but one can find it by searching."

This does seem to say something about the ubuntu attitude to *existing* (and loyal) users, who presumably have grown used to the command line. Current users of linux are probably not pining for the "hidden terminal" feature.

Opening a terminal

Posted Feb 20, 2012 11:30 UTC (Mon) by etienne (guest, #25256) [Link]

In my experience, the intermediate is more:
<super> term
then look at the screen to note that the first three letters have been missed and only thing starting with "m" are displayed, then backspace and retype "t e r m" and then check that the first found application is "terminal" and not "terminal - supervisor" so that either you press <enter> or get the mouse and click on the second icon...