alternative to terminator

alternative to terminator

[Frédéric]

Hi,

I love to use terminator as terminal because of all the splitting I
can do + tabs. Unfortunately, it does not work anymore now that
python3 has become the default.
I guess that this has been fixed in terminator itself as I'm using it
on linux where python3 is now the standard. It appears that I have
version 2.1.0 on fedora 32 and it is 0.98 on cygwin.

Based on that, here are some questions:
- is it possible for a standard cygwin user to try to upgrade the
cygwin package of terminator so that we have a newer version working
nicely with python3 being the default?
- is there any other good alternative with the same kind of
possibilities of splitting the screen?

Best regards,

F

Re: [QUAR] alternative to terminator

[Eliot Moss]

On 2/2/2021 7:18 AM, Frédéric via Cygwin wrote:

> I love to use terminator as terminal because of all the splitting I
> can do + tabs. Unfortunately, it does not work anymore now that
> python3 has become the default.

I think you're saying that the Cygwin version of terminator is old,
and based on python2.

> I guess that this has been fixed in terminator itself as I'm using it
> on linux where python3 is now the standard. It appears that I have
> version 2.1.0 on fedora 32 and it is 0.98 on cygwin.

Indeed, the terminator web pages indicate that it works with python2
and python3.

> Based on that, here are some questions:
> - is it possible for a standard cygwin user to try to upgrade the
> cygwin package of terminator so that we have a newer version working
> nicely with python3 being the default?

The particular package maintainer would have to do the upgrade.  I'm
not sure if there *is* an active maintainer of this package.

> - is there any other good alternative with the same kind of
> possibilities of splitting the screen?

You can always install it yourself from the terminator web site.  Most
python code works out of the box on Cygwin, though it's always possible
that a package tries to do OS-dependent stuff and gets confused under
Cygwin as to whether it is running on Windows or Linux, depending on
how it asks questions of the underlying system.

Regards - Eliot Moss

Re: [QUAR] alternative to terminator

[Frédéric]

> I think you're saying that the Cygwin version of terminator is old,
> and based on python2.

yes, that's right.

> Indeed, the terminator web pages indicate that it works with python2
> and python3.

correct

> You can always install it yourself from the terminator web site.  Most
> python code works out of the box on Cygwin, though it's always possible
> that a package tries to do OS-dependent stuff and gets confused under
> Cygwin as to whether it is running on Windows or Linux, depending on
> how it asks questions of the underlying system.

interesting, I may give it a try.
Thanks

Re: alternative to terminator

[Marco Atzeri]

On 02.02.2021 13:18, Frédéric via Cygwin wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I love to use terminator as terminal because of all the splitting I
> can do + tabs. Unfortunately, it does not work anymore now that
> python3 has become the default.
> I guess that this has been fixed in terminator itself as I'm using it
> on linux where python3 is now the standard. It appears that I have
> version 2.1.0 on fedora 32 and it is 0.98 on cygwin.
> 
> Based on that, here are some questions:
> - is it possible for a standard cygwin user to try to upgrade the
> cygwin package of terminator so that we have a newer version working
> nicely with python3 being the default?

Sure, we always appreciate contributors:
https://cygwin.com/packaging-contributors-guide.html

For what I see on

https://cygwin.com/packages/summary/terminator.html

Terminator is basically orphan and out of sync with upstream

https://github.com/gnome-terminator/terminator

> - is there any other good alternative with the same kind of
> possibilities of splitting the screen?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> F

Regards
Marco

Re: [QUAR] alternative to terminator

[Eliot Moss]

So ... I tried downloading terminator.

1) It did not run out of the box - the python code wants the python package
psutil, which is not available on Cygwin.  Sigh.  It could in principle be
ported, but other people have commented that it is significant work and so it
has not been ported over the last 10 years.

2) I then tried rebuilding it from source.  Building worked (once I installed
intltool, which the building needed), but I got the same issue as (1) when
trying to run the result.

3) I tried commenting out the import of psutil, but that got me to needing a
bunch of Gnome python bindings, not all of which I was able to find for
Cygwin.

So whoever was building this presumably did deeper surgery, which might need
to be repeated to move to python3.

But here is how I had success!  I installed cygwin terminator.  I opened
/usr/bin/terminator and on the first line changed python to python2.
terminator then started for me.  Of course I have both python2 and python3
installed.

Regards - Eliot Moss

Re: [QUAR] alternative to terminator

[Frédéric]

Hi Eliot,

> But here is how I had success!  I installed cygwin terminator.  I opened
> /usr/bin/terminator and on the first line changed python to python2.
> terminator then started for me.  Of course I have both python2 and python3
> installed.

Thanks for trying this. I also did try to add "2" to "python" on the
first line but it did not work for me. I've just tried it again and
now it works!!!
Now it would be better to have a recent version but as you pointed it
out, it seems to be a very hard work.

Thanks a lot!

Re: [QUAR] alternative to terminator

[Eliot Moss]

On 2/3/2021 1:54 AM, Frédéric wrote:
> Hi Eliot,
> 
>> But here is how I had success!  I installed cygwin terminator.  I opened
>> /usr/bin/terminator and on the first line changed python to python2.
>> terminator then started for me.  Of course I have both python2 and python3
>> installed.
> 
> Thanks for trying this. I also did try to add "2" to "python" on the
> first line but it did not work for me. I've just tried it again and
> now it works!!!
> Now it would be better to have a recent version but as you pointed it
> out, it seems to be a very hard work.

Maybe not that hard if you obtained the cygport package for the program.
That would include the specific patches and changes needed for Cygwin.
Knowing those might make it rather easier to adjust a newer version of
terminator.

Best wishes - EM