How To Install xvt on Ubuntu 18.04

In this tutorial we learn how to install xvt on Ubuntu 18.04. xvt is X terminal-emulator similar to xterm, but smaller

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install xvt on Ubuntu 18.04.

What is xvt

xvt is:

xvt is an X terminal-emulator that is designed to be more or less compatible with xterm while using much less swap space. It is mainly intended for use at sites which use large numbers of X terminals but may also be useful on single workstations that are short of memory. The main way that xvt achieves its small size is by avoiding the use of the X toolkit.

If you are looking for a more featureful terminal-emulator than xvt, but one which still uses less swap space than xterm, consider rxvt.

Features of xterm which xvt does not support include:

  • Tektronix 4014 emulation
  • Session logging
  • Pop-up menus. The only one of xterm’s popup menu commands that is provided in xvt is displaying and hiding of the scrollbar and this is done simply by pressing any mouse key in the window with the CONTROL key held down.
  • Toolkit style configurability. In particular, xvt does not allow the user to remap the mouse or keyboard keys.

Features which are supported include:

  • VT100 emulation. Most of the main escape sequences are supported – certainly all those used by the standard screen based UNIX applications.
  • Lines that scroll off the top of the window are saved and can be scrolled back with a scrollbar.
  • Text selection and insertion including double and triple click for words and lines.

There are three methods to install xvt on Ubuntu 18.04. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install xvt Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install xvt using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install xvt

Install xvt Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install xvt using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install xvt

Install xvt Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install xvt using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install xvt

How To Uninstall xvt on Ubuntu 18.04

To uninstall only the xvt package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove xvt

Uninstall xvt And Its Dependencies

To uninstall xvt and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 18.04, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove xvt

Remove xvt Configurations and Data

To remove xvt configuration and data from Ubuntu 18.04 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge xvt

Remove xvt configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove xvt configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge xvt

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install xvt package on Ubuntu 18.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.