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Apple's Terminal App Gets Colorful Redesign in macOS Tahoe

nottorp said:
Can they put telnet back in?

People who do work in the terminal sometimes have to check if something is running manually...
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telnet was removed from Redhat a decade ago. It's very, very dead.

You should be using netcat instead. It has a telnet emulation mode if you need it, but it sounds like you just want to know if a port is being listened on, which netcat has some easier way of doing (but don't ask me how - I put these commands into a script once a year or something... have to look it up in help/man for several minutes everytime. It's worse than tar in this regard...

tar.png
 
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winxmac said:
Which is better, macOS Terminal or Linux Terminal? Or are they the same thing?
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There are different variants of shells (Terminals) like bash, zsh and Apple uses zsh now. But you can change which shell you use and you can also use these on Linux or Unix, as they are all standardized on POSIX and thus, the Mac which runs on a Unix kernel is similar to Linux kernels, which were designed to support the Unix commands. You also have PowerShell on Windows which is also a terminal emulator, but the commands may differ but you can install a Ubuntu subsystem. But the short answer to your question is that they will practically function as the same.
 
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winxmac said:
Which is better, macOS Terminal or Linux Terminal? Or are they the same thing?
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the question cannot be answered this way. The Terminal application itself is just a window that provides the command-line interface, and then it depends what shell you are using. zsh which is the standard shell in macOS these days is largely the same on Linux. The difference lies for the most part in some command-line applications that work differently on Linux as compared to their equivalents on macOS. iTerm2 has been the power user choice for a long time. How good or bad Apple's Terminal app stacks up in comparison remains to be seen.
 
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Donkey Man said:
Imagine that “wonderful” transparency for typing commands. Simply mind boggling.
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Terminal has allowed for transparency since original Mac OS X 10.0 came out, and that was straight up transparency with absolutely no blurring of the background which is even more difficult from a legibility perspective. If the screenshot above is the default theme then the transparency will be extremely subtle and shouldn't impact legibility.
 
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winxmac said:
Which is better, macOS Terminal or Linux Terminal? Or are they the same thing?
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There's kinda three layers to that, and not really any such thing as "Linux Terminal".

This article is talking about Terminal App - which just lets you send typed text to some program on the computer and displays the result, emulating a range of old-school computer terminals like the fabled DEC VT100 or later software such as xterm for Unix/Linux. It has nothing to do with what commands you type. There are a gazillion "Linux terminal apps" to choose from in Unix/Linux and many alternatives for MacOS (some of which are ports of Linux/Unix Apps). Including "terminals" built in to things like VS Code.

Next layer - what you are talking to is technially called the "shell" which takes your input and acts on it - usually by running other programs but also providing a bunch of built-in commands and a scripting language for automating things. It also handles things like recalling and editing previous commands etc. and all sorts of power-user tricks for efficient command line working. Again, there are a whole bunch of these to choose from in the Unix/Linux world with different quirks (and a full chorus of evangelical fans and haters) - the Mac currently uses one called "zsh" which is widely available in Unix/Linux, although the default for Linux tends to be one called "bash" (unless you're a "power user" you probably won't notics).

Under that, sits the can of worms that is the multitude of "flavours" of Unix and Linux distributions, which determines what set of "standard" command line utilities you have. Mac OS is (roughly) BSD Unix whereas "Linux" distributions are - well I guess now "Linux Standard Base" but historically a mixture of GNU and System V... Or, to translate into English, just different enough from BSD Unix to occasionally throw you an obscure curve ball... Enjoy.

(Oh, yes, and for the pedants, Linux is technically just the name of the kernel and applies to Android as well as various other specialist OSs as well as the familiar distributions - Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora etc. which are what most people actually mean when they say "linux")
 
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MNGR said:
Why not use ssh?
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You shouldn't have tools installed that you don't need on your production server, as a matter of best security practices. So if your server's primary job isn't to be an ssh server, it shouldn't have the binaries for an ssh server on it, nevermind run them.

There's plenty of protocols that a server might be running that ssh wouldn't be able to tell you anything about. netcat is the proper tool for testing connectivity with them.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
Colorful redesign of "Terminal" is so incredibly far down my list of wants/needs for macOS.
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I agree. What is actually going to use all those colours?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If it is broke - fix the bits that are broke before adding new bits.

businessnumbersmoneypeopl said:
Apple please some attention to the Preview app next.
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Which bits?

I'm all for bug fixes or adding new supported formats, but I find Preview does pretty good service (c.f. what's available on Windows etc.) - its good to have the basics like this as part of the OS but if they're too powerful it decimates the market for more powerful, specialist apps for things like PDF editing.

seek3r said:
Technically MacOS is an actual UNIX (actual, certified, UNIX), not Linux based
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...and, equally technically, Linux (which is technically just a kernel) is not Unix (and relies heavily on software from the GNU project which actually stands for "Gnu is not Unix").
 
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I've used iTerm2 for years and then switched to Ghostty when 1.0 came out (I've also tested out Alacritty, WezTerm and Rio in the meantime), but this can actually take me back to good old Terminal!
 
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ArtOfWarfare said:
You shouldn't have tools installed that you don't need on your production server, as a matter of best security practices.
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Good point, but also applies in spades to the person who wanted telnet back! :)

Telnet can still be installed if you really need it - preferably just spin up a linux VM for that purpose...

MNGR said:
Why not use ssh?
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ssh is the (vastly) preferred replacement for telnet's intended purpose - but it won't let you arbitrarily connect and send/receive text to any old port in order to test a service. "nc" looks to be the modern alternative to that.

Plus, I'm sure there are still devices out there that rely on telnet for command line access. They shouldn't, but if you're stuck with one of them that you're not in a position to replace, what do you do?
 
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theluggage said:
I agree. What is actually going to use all those colours?
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Some terminal applications can be quite colorful, or can be made so. Look e.g. at Catppuccin for (Neo)Vim.

Terminal emulators have supported 24-bit color for quite a while now, with XTerm introducing support in 2012. I'd agree it's not exactly a must-have feature to catch-up to, but it's also been 13 years...
 
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seek3r said:
Technically MacOS is an actual UNIX (actual, certified, UNIX), not Linux based :)
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Yes. The post that you thought needed correction ("macOS is like Linux unix based") is missing two commas ("MacOS is, like Linux, UNIX based") or internal parentheses.
 
MacRumors said:
It's a long-overdue modernization of an app that's essential for developers and power users
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"Apple, you've got to do something with that bloatware called Xcode. Kinda terrifying how many businesses and careers rely on something so dyfunctional."

"Here, we re-skinned Terminal for you."
 
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winxmac said:
Which is better, macOS Terminal or Linux Terminal? Or are they the same thing?
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Exactly the same thing. MacOS uses Zsh just like several Linux distro's. You can also use Homebrew or MacPorts to install Bash which is what most Linux distro's use. Personally I've installed Nushell on both.
 
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mdatwood said:
Improving Terminal.app is about as developer focused as they can get. I think it's nice to see.
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You’re interacting with turbineseaplane, his thing is that he literally leaves a complaint on every single article, no matter what it is.
I wouldn’t really come here for much positivity, even about something like the terminal.
 
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