Alacritty

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Alacritty is a terminal emulator focused on simplicity and performance. The performance goal means it should be faster than any other terminal emulators available. The simplicity goal means it does not have features such as tabs or splits (which can be provided by some window managers, or terminal multiplexers).

Alacritty is written in Rust and GPU-accelerated using OpenGL.

USE flags

USE flags for x11-terms/alacritty GPU-accelerated terminal emulator

X	Add support for X11
debug	Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Quality_Assurance/Backtraces
wayland	Enable dev-libs/wayland backend

Data provided by the Gentoo Package Database · Last update: 2021-09-11 13:22 More information about USE flags

Installation

Emerge

Install x11-terms/alacritty package:

root #emerge --ask x11-terms/alacritty

Configuration

Files

alacritty does not automatically create or install a configuration file, but it will search for one in the following locations:

• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/alacritty/alacritty.yml
• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/alacritty.yml
• $HOME/.config/alacritty/alacritty.yml
• $HOME/.alacritty.yml

Configuration files with currently supported values are provided with each upstream release. On Gentoo, depending on the version installed, the file can be found in the following location. Be sure to adjust the PV ( package version) value to align with whatever version is currently installed on the system.

The default configuration can be created in a users' home directory with the following commands:

user $mkdir --parents ~/alacritty

user $bzcat /usr/share/doc/alacritty-${PV}/alacritty.yml.bz2 > ~/alacritty/alacritty.yml

Warning
The configuration file is YAML-formatted. Preserving the indentation is critical (YAML is indentation sensitive!).

By default alacritty will reload the configuration automatically when changes have been written into the file. This behavior can be disabled with the following invocation:

user $alacritty --no-live-config-reload

This can also be disabled via the configuration file:

FILE ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.ymldisable live reload

# Live config reload (changes require restart)
live_config_reload: false

The configuration file should be downloaded and edited from the repository's release page. Explanations are provided in the configuration file.

Important
Make sure, that the adapted configuration file is compatible with the current installation of Alacritty. It might be, that version differences cause compatibility issues.

Font configuration

One can run the following command and copy the desired font name:

user $fc-list -f '%{family}\n' | awk '!x[$0]++'

Changing the default font by editing the config file.

FILE ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.ymlfont configure

# Font configuration (changes require restart)
font:
  # The normal (roman) font face to use.
  normal:
    family: Hack
    # Style can be specified to pick a specific face.
    style: Regular

  # The bold font face
  bold:
    family: Hack
    # Style can be specified to pick a specific face.
    # style: Bold

  # The italic font face
  italic:
    family: Hack
    # Style can be specified to pick a specific face.
    # style: Italic
  size: 11.0

This will change the font to one provided by media-fonts/hack, given that the package is installed.

Note
This method uses defaults for all other settings.

Colors configuration

FILE ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.ymlcolor schemes

schemes:
  solarized_light: &light
    primary:
      #...
    normal:
      #...
    bright:
      #...
  solarized_dark: &dark
    primary:
      #...
    normal:
      #...
    bright:
      #...

colors: *light

With this config, Alacritty will use Solarized Light. To switch to the dark version, change colors: *light to colors: *dark.

More schemes can be found from this page: alacritty Wiki of Color schemes.

Transparent background

FILE ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.ymltransparent background configure

background_opacity: 0.8  # value range is 0 ~ 1

Configuration with tabbed

Since Alacritty does not support tabs intentionally, one can use x11-misc/tabbed:

user $tabbed -r 2 alacritty --embed ""

See also:

user $man 1 tabbed

user $man 1 alacritty

Troubleshooting

Using fcitx

This needs app-i18n/fcitx and x11-wm/i3 installed. The initialization file should look like this:

FILE ~/.xprofile or ~/.xinitrc.xinitrc

export GTK_IM_MODULE=fcitx
export QT_IM_MODULE=fcitx
export XMODIFIERS="@im=fcitx"
eval "$(dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session)"

exec i3

The most important thing is to start i3 last.

Colorless

FILE /etc/DIR_COLORSAdd this line in order to enable colorful prompt, ls, etc

TERM alacritty

See related GitHub issue.

Alternative solution

Alacritty did not set $PS1 or $LS_COLORS, these can be set in the ~/.bashrc or /etc/profile or other rc file.

For example:

FILE ~/.bashrcbash color configure

# prompt
export PS1="\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ "

There is a simple way to set colorful file:

FILE ~/.bashrcls color configure

# use alias
alias ls='ls --color=auto'

Window title

The default title is: Alacritty.

Bash

In Bash, one can set the window title by manipulating the environment variable PROMT_COMMAND.

The following will set the window title to: username@hostname:cwd.

FILE ~/.bashrcwindow title bar

# set PROMPT_COMMAND
PROMPT_COMMAND=${PROMPT_COMMAND:+$PROMPT_COMMAND; }'printf "\033]0;%s@%s:%s\007" "${USER}" "${HOSTNAME%%.*}" "${PWD/#$HOME/\~}"'

Zsh

In Zsh, one can set the window title by using the functions precmd() and preexec():

The following will set the window title to: username@hostname: zsh[shell_level] cwd_or_current command

For example:

larry@gentoo.local: zsh[4] /etc/conf.d

While executing tail -f /var/log/*:

larry@gentoo.local: zsh[4] tail -f /var/log/*

FILE ~/.zshrcwindow title bar

if [[ "${TERM}" != "" && "${TERM}" == "alacritty" ]]
then
    precmd()
    {
        # output on which level (%L) this shell is running on.
        # append the current directory (%~), substitute home directories with a tilde.
        # "\a" bell (man 1 echo)
        # "print" must be used here; echo cannot handle prompt expansions (%L)
        print -Pn "\e]0;$(id --user --name)@$(hostname): zsh[%L] %~\a"
    }

    preexec()
    {
        # output current executed command with parameters
        echo -en "\e]0;$(id --user --name)@$(hostname): ${1}\a"
    }
fi

See also

• Terminal emulator — emulates a video terminal within another display architecture (e.g. in X).

External resources

• Rust Meetup January 2017 - A short talk about Alacritty at the Rust Meetup January 2017 (starts at 57:00).