xterm

Standard X11 terminal emulator

TLDR

Open terminal with a title

$ xterm -T [Example]

Open terminal in fullscreen mode

$ xterm -fullscreen

Open with custom colors (dark blue background, yellow text)

$ xterm -bg darkblue -fg yellow

Open with specific geometry (100x35 characters at position 200,20)

$ xterm -geometry 100x35+200+20

Open using a specific font and size

$ xterm -fa '[Serif]' -fs 20

SYNOPSIS

xterm [-toolkitoption ...] [-option ...] [shell]

xterm is the standard terminal emulator for the X Window System, providing a text terminal interface within a graphical environment. It supports VT102, VT220, and Tektronix 4014 terminal emulation with extensive customization options.Features include multiple fonts, configurable colors, scrollback buffer, selection and paste, Tektronix graphics mode, and full internationalization support. Configuration can be done via command line, X resources, or the control menus (Ctrl+click).

PARAMETERS

-T string

Set window title

-geometry WxH+X+Y

Set window size and position

-bg color

Background color

-fg color

Foreground (text) color

-fa font

TrueType font face name

-fs size

TrueType font size in points

-fn font

Bitmap font name

-fullscreen

Start in fullscreen mode

-rv

Reverse video (swap foreground/background)

-sb

Enable scrollbar

-sl lines

Number of lines to save in scrollback

-e program [args]

Run program instead of shell

-hold

Keep window open after command exits

-class class

X resource class name

INSTALL

sudo apt install xterm

sudo dnf install xterm

sudo pacman -S xterm

sudo apk add xterm

sudo zypper install xterm

brew install xterm

nix profile install nixpkgs#xterm

CAVEATS

Requires X11 display. Default appearance is deliberately minimal; extensive customization via ~/.Xresources is common. Some modern features (like 256 colors) require specific resource settings. Font configuration differs between bitmap and TrueType fonts.

HISTORY

Originally written by Mark Vandevoorde at MIT as part of Project Athena in the mid-1980s, becoming part of the X Window System distribution. One of the oldest continuously maintained X applications. Thomas Dickey has been the primary maintainer since 1996.