URxvt is a super lightweight terminal yet powerful enough to use as your daily driver terminal. Being a lightweight terminal, URxvt is popular among Linux users who like to customize their Linux desktops to look more beautiful and aesthetic.
In this article, we will learn how to install, configure, and customize URxvt on Linux so you can have a better-looking terminal yet still light and fast to run.
Whether you are a new or experienced Linux user, URxvt will suit your need for a terminal emulator.
What is URxvt Terminal?
URxvt or rxvt-unicode is the fork of the rxvt terminal. the U in here stands for Unicode. As the name suggests, URxvt does support Unicode characters, which means it can display a wide range of characters.
The URxvt is highly configurable and can be customized through the configuration file, with a wide variety of options, colors, fonts, and many more.
Besides the visual customization capability, URxvt also supports plugins, which will extend the functionality further. With the plugin, you can add some features like keyboard shortcuts, tabs, resize font on the fly, and so on.
URxvt Main Features
Besides being a lightweight terminal, URxvt offers some quite good features. Some of those features are:
- Lightweight and Fast
URxvt is a very lightweight terminal which makes it faster compared to other terminals. - Support for Unicode
URxvt supports Unicode characters which are allowing users to use a wide range of different characters and symbols across different languages. - Customizable color schemes and fonts
URxvt allows you to customize font and color schemes through the configuration file, which usually uses the.Xresources
or.Xdefaults
files. - Extend the functionality with plugins
Yes, the URxvt has the ability to add plugins so you can have more functionality.
Install URxvt on Linux
URxvt is available on many Linux distributions, which means it is available on the default package managers making it easy to install.
I’ll show you how to install URxvt on major popular Linux distribution.
Install URxvt on Ubuntu
To install URxvt on Ubuntu or Debian-based distro is quite easy, you just need to use two lines of command.
First, you need to update the apt repository with the latest iteration. to do so, use the command below:
sudo apt update
After that, you can proceed to install URxvt with the next command:
sudo apt install rxvt-unicode
The installation process should begin, and just wait for it to finish the installation process.
Install URxvt on Arch Linux / Manjaro
On Arch Linux and Manjaro, you can use the pacman
command.
sudo pacman -Syy rxvt-unicode
Wait for the installation process to roll, and the URxvt should already be installed in your Arch Linux machine.
Install URxvt on Fedora
Not much different, installing URxvt on Fedora is easy too, thanks to the dnf
package manager.
As usual, you need to update the package manager repository to the latest version with this command:
dnf update
And then start the installation process with the following command:
sudo dnf install rxvt-unicode
Just wait until the installation process to complete.
Setup Your URxvt Configuration
Now, after you are finished installing the URxvt on your Linux machine, the first time you launch URxvt you will notice that the appearance is not really that great. It looks something like this:
![urxvt appearance with default configuration urxvt appearance with default configuration](https://linuxspin.com/wp-content/uploads/urxvt-appearance-with-default-configuration-1.png)
That’s why we need to set up some configurations to make it look more appealing.
Create the .Xresources File
First, we need to create the .Xresources
file in your home directory. .Xresources
is a file that contains a lot of configuration for X client applications, including URxvt. Later, we will set the URxvt configuration inside this file. To create the .Xresources
file, you can use the command below:
nano ~/.Xresources
And then we can move to the next step, which is adding some necessary configurations.
Add Some Necessary Configurations
After creating the .Xresources
file, we can now add configurations to it.
Here is the basic configuration to make your URxvt look more pleasing.
!! CONFIGURATIONS
URxvt.font: xft:Liberation Mono:style=Regular:size=11
URxvt.scrollBar: false
URxvt.borderless: true
URxvt.geometry: 65x20
!! COLOR SCHEMES
! special
*.foreground: #c5c8c6
*.background: #1d1f21
*.cursorColor: #c5c8c6
! black
*.color0: #282a2e
*.color8: #373b41
! red
*.color1: #a54242
*.color9: #cc6666
! green
*.color2: #8c9440
*.color10: #b5bd68
! yellow
*.color3: #de935f
*.color11: #f0c674
! blue
*.color4: #5f819d
*.color12: #81a2be
! magenta
*.color5: #85678f
*.color13: #b294bb
! cyan
*.color6: #5e8d87
*.color14: #8abeb7
! white
*.color7: #707880
*.color15: #c5c8c6
Copy the configuration above, and paste it into the .Xresources
file.
While you are still inside the nano text editor, save the file by pressing CTRL + O
then exit from nano by pressing CTRL + X
.
The final step is applying the configuration you have written by running the command below:
xrdb ~/.Xresources
Now close your URxvt terminal and reopen it again. It should look better now. With the above configurations, your terminal should look like this:
![urxvt appearance with custom configuration urxvt appearance with custom configuration](https://linuxspin.com/wp-content/uploads/urxvt-appearance-with-custom-configuration.png)
A little bit better right? the text no longer looks small and thin. The colors are also improved from the default ones.
Customize Your URxvt Terminal
URxvt provides flexibility to customize the looks of your terminal by adding a few configurations to the .Xresources
file. Some of the customizations you can do are changing the font and color schemes.
Change URxvt Font
Font plays an important role in terminal customization, especially with URxvt. As you already know, the default font in URxvt is clunky. That’s why we want to change the URxvt default font with better and more elegant fonts.
To change the font in URxvt is pretty simple, use the following format and put it in the .Xresources
file.
URxvt.font: xft:Iosevka Nerd Font Mono:Regular:size=13
Change the Iosevka Nerd Font Mono
with other fonts, you want to use.
to see the available fonts in your system, run the command fc-list
, it should show output similar to this:
![fc-list command to see the available fonts fc-list command to see the available fonts](https://linuxspin.com/wp-content/uploads/fc-list-command-to-see-the-available-fonts-1.png)
For example, from the output above, we can use the font Noto Sans Mono with Regular style and font size of 11px. The configuration will be like this:
URxvt.font: xft:Noto Sans Mono:Regular:size=11
Once you’ve done adding the configuration, save the file and run the command xrdb ~/.Xresources
to apply the changes.
Close and reopen URxvt to see the effect.
Change URxvt Color Scheme
The next step is to change the color scheme. Changing the color schemes will make your terminal look more beautiful. And of course, you have the option to change the URxvt color scheme.
Basically, there are 16 sets of colors you can change, from color0
, color1
, and so on up to color15
. And three additional colors for foreground
, background
, and cursorColor
. You can change each of these variables with any color you want to use, as long as it is a hexadecimal color.
To give you an idea, here is a solarized color scheme that consists of various hexadecimal colors.
! solarized dark
! special
*.foreground: #93a1a1
*.background: #002b36
*.cursorColor: #93a1a1
! black
*.color0: #002b36
*.color8: #657b83
! red
*.color1: #dc322f
*.color9: #dc322f
! green
*.color2: #859900
*.color10: #859900
! yellow
*.color3: #b58900
*.color11: #b58900
! blue
*.color4: #268bd2
*.color12: #268bd2
! magenta
*.color5: #6c71c4
*.color13: #6c71c4
! cyan
*.color6: #2aa198
*.color14: #2aa198
! white
*.color7: #93a1a1
*.color15: #fdf6e3
You can use this color scheme by copying this color scheme and paste into the .Xresources
file. And then run the command xrdb .Xresources
to apply the color scheme.
close your URxvt terminal and reopen it again, and you will see your color scheme already changed.
![change urxvt color scheme change urxvt color scheme](https://linuxspin.com/wp-content/uploads/change-urxvt-color-scheme.png)
Disable URxvt Scrollbar
You may want to disable the scrollbar in URxvt, to make it look more minimalist and less clunky.
The scrollbar is enabled by default. To disable the scrollbar, put the following configuration into your .Xresources
file.
URxvt.scrollBar: false
Save the configuration file, and then run the command xrdb .Xresources
.
Now close the URxvt and reopen it again, the scrollbar should be gone.
To reenable the scrollbar, you can simply change the URxvt.scrollBar: false
to URxvt.scrollBar: true
.
Change URxvt Default Window Size
The URxvt default window size is 80×24, every time you open a new URxvt window, it will always be 80×24. Sometimes it appears too big on a small screen or maybe too large on a larger display. For that reason, you can change the default URxvt window size to the size you prefer.
To change the URxvt window size, use the below configuration, and change the URxvt window size you prefer.
URxvt.geometry: 65x20
Save the file, and then run the xrdb .Xresources
command.
Try to close the URxvt window and reopen it again. Now it should have the new window dimension as what you’ve set.
Make URxvt Transparent
![transparent urxvt using picom compositor transparent urxvt using picom compositor](https://linuxspin.com/wp-content/uploads/transparent-urxvt-using-picom-compositor.png)
You can make your URxvt terminal look much more modern by giving it a touch of transparency. Luckily, URxvt already has support for transparency.
There are two available options to make URxvt transparent:
1. Using the Compositor app
With this method, you will need to use a compositor app like Picom or Compiz. But trust me, the result would be beautiful. The URxvt transparency will be more consistent across the desktop.
To use this method, add the following configurations to your .Xresources
file.
urxvt*depth: 32
urxvt*background: rgba:0000/0000/0350/c900
Save the file, and run xrdb .Xresources
and reload your URxvt terminal to see the effect.
2. Using the native URxvt transparency
If you don’t have a compositor app, or maybe you don’t want to use one (because they will use some processing resources too), then this method might be the best for you.
Just add the configuration below to the .Xresources
file.
urxvt*transparent: true
urxvt*shading: 25
Save the configuration file, and run the xrdb .Xresources
command. Finally, restart your URxvt terminal. Voila! your beloved URxvt terminal is now transparent.
Uninstall URxvt
You might want to uninstall URxvt when you don’t need it anymore, or you already moving to other terminals. It’s okay, you can easily uninstall the URxvt terminal from your Linux machine.
Although I still recommend you to keep the URxvt installed in case in the future you want to use it again. But, if you still want to uninstall URxvt, you can do it with the following commands:
Uninstall URxvt on Ubuntu / Linux Mint
It is pretty much easy to uninstall URxvt on Ubuntu or Linux Mint, just run the simple command below, and URxvt should be already uninstalled from your computer.
sudo apt remove rxvt-unicode
Uninstall URxvt on Arch Linux / Manjaro
On Arch Linux or Manjaro, it is also quite easy to uninstall URxvt, you can use pacman
package manager to remove URxvt. Just run the following command:
sudo pacman -R rxvt-unicode
Uninstall URxvt on Fedora
If you are using Fedora, it shouldn’t be difficult either, because with the dnf
package manager you can easily remove URxvt from your Fedora desktop. Execute the command below from your terminal, and URxvt should be already removed.
dnf remove rxvt-unicode
Conclusion
Here, we have learned about what is URxvt, how to install it on your Linux machine, and also we have learned how to customize the URxvt terminal to make it looks much better.
Now that you already know the basics for customizing URxvt, you can customize it as much as you like and have a better-looking terminal.