Despite this modern replacement for GNOME Terminal being decent (especially since gaining a fancy tab overview) the bods overseeing what’s included in Fedora remain unconvinced by its appeal, citing missing features and a lack of a definitive “USP”.
Thus, they plan to “stick with GNOME Terminal indefinitely”.
Ouch.
Now, with development effort on Console (once known as Kings Cross Station or KGX) hitting the skids, GNOME is going further: it’s considering demoting Console from the desktop’s Core Apps selection and replacing it with —you guessed it: GNOME Terminal.
Music Chairs Terminal Apps
Console was made a GNOME Core app in GNOME 42 but few distros went ahead and adopted it. Ubuntu devs have stuck with GNOME Terminal in all releases since, as has Fedora.
As highlighted in a blog post by GNOME’s Michael Catanzaro, Fedora is a super important downstream of the GNOME desktop. If it can’t see a compelling reason to adopt an app the project recommends then, simply, there’s a disconnect; something’s gone wrong.
“We messed up by adding [Console] to core before downstreams were comfortable with it, and at this point it has become unclear whether Console should remain in core or whether we should give up and bring back Terminal,” he writes.
It’s all a bit music chairs, isn’t it? In, out, in, out, shake it all about…
Despite the drama (which, lest anyone reach for superlatives to throw my way, is comparative – we’re talking terminal apps here, not the economy) something positive is coming out of the affair: a new process for evaluating, incubating, and approving GNOME core apps.
The aim?
To prevent situations like this from occurring in the future when (as it’s not really a case of if) core app changes take place.
How?
By signposting intention to introduce new apps sooner. This way downstream distros have time to react, provide feedback, make their thoughts known.
We choose our own defaults, anyway
It’s easy to understand Fedora’s position: they’re cool with swapping an app out, but only if there’s a compelling reason to. Console lacks that — folks like me might be all-for its minimally-minded feature set, but lots of existing users aren’t.
I made Console my default terminal app Fedora (and Ubuntu, though I make heavy use of BlackBox, and the ddterm GNOME extension too) and I like it: I don’t find myself missing any of the features (like profiles) GNOME Terminal offers — but I’m not a heavy terminal user.
Maybe you are?
Let me know which terminal app you prefer down in the comments (yup, even if it’s not one of the ones mentioned in this post).
