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Hey guys, I'm looking for something similar to Emacs shell. I want to be able to select text easily in my terminal, be able to manipulate the output.

Unfortunately, emacs is not always an option. I can't figure out how to make a few things (e.g autocompletion) work the way it does in gnome-terminal and it is a bit of a pain on remote system.

I would rather not spend the time fixing/configuring Emacs unless there is a cool piece of software out there doing something similar to gnome-terminal + let's me manipulate the output without touching the bloody mouse.

Thanks for your help,


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4 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

I'm not sure I completely understand the question, but if you're looking for terminal emulation inside of Emacs, there are at least four options bundled with Emacs 22+ that offer varying levels of xterm-like capability:

  • term
  • ansi-term
  • shell
  • eshell

eshell, IMO, is the most departed from the tradtional "xterm" experience, but also offers the most buffer-like experience, and it is cross-platform, which is a huge win.

I think shell might be the sweet spot for you if you're looking for term-like behavior, while retaining the editing capabilities.

Finally, term and ansi-term are very term-like, and will behave almost exactly like a xterm/konsole/gnome-shell session.

One other note: if you want scrollback access, copying, pasting, etc. and you don't have Emacs available, I highly recommend learning and using GNU Screen.

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Thank you. Looks like screen is exactly what I'm looking for :-)... <c-a Esc> to enter copy mode XD –  hbt Jun 27 '10 at 4:56
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You should try the Emacs terminal emulator term(or its colored version ansi-term). There are other terminal emulators for Emacs around, but this is the most popular(and the only one bundled with the default installation).

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Thanks. But, I want something similar to shell. I really like the way I navigate around the output/commands like it was my editor. –  hbt Jun 27 '10 at 4:52
@hbt: have you tried using C-c C-j to switch term into line mode? That might be what you're looking for. –  Mike Dinsdale Jun 27 '10 at 7:50
mult-term, which uses term is a nice addition. –  jrm Feb 16 '12 at 18:45
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Looks like you want to look into readline on bash (or if available on your favourite shell). A quick google gives a few links here (including a cheatsheet).

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I was also looking for some kind of shell like emacs, with support to some feature like emacs buffers for example. That would be great.

I just found this one: Terminator

Have a look: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-applications-to-change-the-way-you-work-with-linux-terminal/

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