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How to make urxvt look like gnome-terminal

Date: 2009-11-02  |   Modified: 2009-12-29  |   Tags: linux, softwaretools, ubuntu, urxvt   |   3 Comments

My terminal of choice is rxvt-unicode (urxvt) because it is fast and lightweight. However, I recently opened up gnome-terminal and it was so much prettier than my urxvt. Here's how I made my urxvt look like gnome-terminal. The last step involves compiling urxvt from source because the latest source includes a patch to configure horizontal spacing of letters.

Set up colors

Add the following to your ~/.Xdefaults file:

! to match gnome-terminal "Linux console" scheme
! foreground/background
URxvt*background: #000000
URxvt*foreground: #ffffff
! black
URxvt.color0  : #000000
URxvt.color8  : #555555
! red
URxvt.color1  : #AA0000
URxvt.color9  : #FF5555
! green
URxvt.color2  : #00AA00
URxvt.color10 : #55FF55
! yellow
URxvt.color3  : #AA5500
URxvt.color11 : #FFFF55
! blue
URxvt.color4  : #0000AA
URxvt.color12 : #5555FF
! magenta
URxvt.color5  : #AA00AA
URxvt.color13 : #FF55FF
! cyan
URxvt.color6  : #00AAAA
URxvt.color14 : #55FFFF
! white
URxvt.color7  : #AAAAAA
URxvt.color15 : #FFFFFF

Select font

Also add the following to your ~/.Xdefaults file:

URxvt*font: xft:Monospace:pixelsize=11

Don't use a bold font

Also add the following to your ~/.Xdefaults file:

URxvt*boldFont: xft:Monospace:pixelsize=11

Fix urxvt font width

This is the most difficult thing to fix. It requires installing urxvt from CVS source.

  • Install prerequisites: 
    apt-get build-dep rxvt-unicode
  • Get CVS source code: 
    cvs -z3 -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.schmorp.de/schmorpforge co rxvt-unicode
  • Configure: 
    cd rxvt-unicode
./configure --prefix=/home/saltycrane/lib/rxvt-unicode-20091102
  • Make & make install: 
    make
make install
  • Link urxvt executable to your ~/bin directory: 
    cd ~/bin
ln -s ../lib/rxvt-unicode-20091102/bin/urxvt .
  • Edit ~/.Xdefaults once again: 
    URxvt*letterSpace: -1

Also cool: Open links in Firefox

Here is another trick (thanks to Zachary Tatlock) to make clicking on URLs open in your Firefox browser. Add the following to your ~/.Xdefaults (yes there's Perl in your urxvt!):

URxvt.perl-ext-common : default,matcher
URxvt.urlLauncher     : firefox
URxvt.matcher.button  : 1

See also

Screenshots

Urxvt (default):

ugly urxvt screenshot

Gnome-terminal:

gnome-terminal screenshot

Urxvt (modified):

pretty urxvt screenshot

If you're interested, here is how I printed the terminal colors:

#!/bin/bash
echo -e "\\e[0mCOLOR_NC (No color)"
echo -e "\\e[1;37mCOLOR_WHITE\\t\\e[0;30mCOLOR_BLACK"
echo -e "\\e[0;34mCOLOR_BLUE\\t\\e[1;34mCOLOR_LIGHT_BLUE"
echo -e "\\e[0;32mCOLOR_GREEN\\t\\e[1;32mCOLOR_LIGHT_GREEN"
echo -e "\\e[0;36mCOLOR_CYAN\\t\\e[1;36mCOLOR_LIGHT_CYAN"
echo -e "\\e[0;31mCOLOR_RED\\t\\e[1;31mCOLOR_LIGHT_RED"
echo -e "\\e[0;35mCOLOR_PURPLE\\t\\e[1;35mCOLOR_LIGHT_PURPLE"
echo -e "\\e[0;33mCOLOR_YELLOW\\t\\e[1;33mCOLOR_LIGHT_YELLOW"
echo -e "\\e[1;30mCOLOR_GRAY\\t\\e[0;37mCOLOR_LIGHT_GRAY"

3 Comments — feed icon Comments feed for this post


#1 gentoo commented on 2009-12-27:

Please post a screenshot.


#2 Eliot commented on 2009-12-29:

gentoo, screenshots added!


#3 gentoo commented on 2010-01-31:

Looks great. Thank you!

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