The Terminal menu, shown in Table 2.8, contains options for controlling the terminal emulation session features. There are no shortcut keys to access these items.
Table 2.8 The Terminal Menu
The Reset option is extremely useful. One day, you may accidently cause your terminal session to display random characters and symbols. When this occurs, the text is unreadable. It is typically caused by displaying a non-text file to the screen. You can quickly get the terminal session back to normal by selecting Reset or Reset and Clear.
The Tabs menu, shown in Table 2.9, provides items for controlling the location of the tabs and selecting which tab is active. This menu displays only when you have more than one tab session open.
Table 2.9 The Tabs Menu
Finally, the Help menu contains two menu options. Contents provides a full GNOME Terminal manual so you can research individual GNOME Terminal items and features. The About option shows you the current GNOME Terminal version that's running.
Besides the GNOME terminal emulator package, another commonly used package is Konsole Terminal. In many ways, Konsole Terminal is similar to GNOME Terminal. However, enough differences exist to warrant its own section.
Using the Konsole Terminal Emulator
The KDE Desktop Project created its own terminal emulation package called Konsole Terminal. The Konsole package incorporates basic terminal emulation features, along with more advanced ones expected from a graphical application. This section describes Konsole Terminal features and shows you how to use them.
The Konsole Terminal is the default terminal emulator for the KDE desktop environment. You can easily access it via the KDE environment's menu system. In other desktop environments, accessing the Konsole Terminal can be a little more difficult.
In the KDE desktop environment, you can access the Konsole Terminal by clicking the icon labeled Kickoff Application Launcher in the lower-left corner of the screen. Then click Applications⇨System⇨Terminal (Konsole).
Note
You may see two terminal menu options within the KDE menu environment. If you do, the Terminal menu option with the words Konsole beneath it is the Konsole terminal.
In the GNOME desktop environment, the Konsole terminal is typically not installed by default. If Konsole Terminal has been installed, you can access it via the GNOME menu system. In the upper-left corner of the window, click Applications⇨System Tools⇨Konsole.
Note
You may not have the Konsole terminal emulation package installed on your system. If you would like to install it, read through Chapter 9 to learn how to install software via the command line.
In the Unity desktop environment, if Konsole has been installed, you can access it via Dash⇨Search and type Konsole. The Konsole Terminal shows up in the Dash home area as an application named Konsole. Click that icon to open the Konsole terminal emulator.
Figure 2.4 shows the Konsole Terminal. It was accessed on a KDE desktop environment in a CentOS Linux distribution.
Figure 2.4 The Konsole Terminal
Remember that, in most desktop environments, you can create a launcher to access applications such as the Konsole Terminal. The command you need to type for the launcher to start up the Konsole terminal emulator is konsole. Also, if the Konsole Terminal is installed, you can start it from another terminal emulator by typing konsole and pressing Enter.
The Konsole Terminal, similar to GNOME Terminal, has several configuration options provided by menus and shortcut keys. The following section describes these various options.
The Konsole Terminal menu bar contains the configuration and customization options you need to easily view and change features in your terminal emulation session. The following tables briefly describe the menu options and associated shortcut keys.
Tip
The Konsole Terminal provides a simple menu when you right-click in the active session area. Several menu items are available in this easy-to-access menu.
The File menu, shown in Table 2.10, provides options for starting a new tab in the current window or in a new window.
Table 2.10 The File Menu
When you first start the Konsole Terminal, the only profile listed in the menu is Shell. As more profiles are created and saved, their names appear in the menu list.
Note
As you read through these Konsole Terminal menu options, keep in mind that your Linux distribution's Konsole Terminal may have very different menu options available. This is because some Linux distributions have kept older versions of the Konsole Terminal emulation package.
The Edit menu, shown in Table 2.11, provides options for handling text in the session. Also, managing tab names is in this options list.
Table 2.11 The Edit Menu
Konsole provides an excellent method for tracking what function is taking place in each tab session. Using the Rename Tab menu option, you can name a tab to match its current task. This helps in tracking which open tab session is performing what function.
The View menu, shown in Table 2.12, contains items for controlling individual session views in the Konsole Terminal window. In addition, options are available that aid in monitoring terminal session activity.
Table 2.12 The View Menu
The Monitor for Silence menu option is used for indicating tab silence. Tab silence occurs when no new text appears in the current tab session for 10 seconds. This allows you to switch to another tab while waiting for application output to stop.
Tab activity, toggled by the Monitor for Activity option, issues a special message when new text appears in the tab session. This option allows you to be notified when output from an application occurs.
Konsole retains a history, formally called a scrollback buffer, for each tab. The history contains output text that has scrolled out of the terminal viewing area. By default, the last 1,000 lines in the scrollback buffer are retained. The Scrollback menu, shown in Table 2.13, contains options for viewing this buffer.
Table 2.13 The Scrollback Menu
You can scroll back through the scrollback buffer by simply using the scrollbar in the viewing area. Also, you can scroll back line by line by pressing the Shift+Up Arrow or scroll back a page (24 lines) at a time by pressing Shift+Page Up.
The Bookmarks menu options, shown in Table 2.14, provide a way to manage bookmarks set in the Konsole Terminal window. A bookmark enables you to save