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5.9. Working with xterm and Friends

xterm is by far the most commonly used X client, although more and more people are switching from xterm to similar or related programs, such as rxvt -- which is a lightweight xterm derivative without the Tektronix terminal emulation support. Regardless, the most commonly used clients are largely derivatives of xterm, so we're devoting the rest of this section to this single client and its family.

xterm[20] gives you a window containing your standard shell prompt (as specified in your /etc/passwd entry). You can use this window to run any command-line-oriented Unix program or to start additional X applications.

[20]When we refer, throughout the rest of the chapter, to xterm, we're often referring to xterm proper, as well as rxvt and other related terminal programs.

The uncustomized xterm window should be sufficient for many users' needs. Certainly you can do anything in a vanilla xterm window that you can from a character-based terminal. But xterm also has special features you can use, and since you spend so much time in xterm, you might as well use them.

The rest of this chapter gives you a set of tricks and tips about using xterm, including the following:

NOTE: The articles in this chapter use terms that you may want defined:

--LM, VQ, and SJC



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