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Adrian Keister
Asked: 2020-09-12 10:59:07 +0800 CST

Make "Open in Terminal" use Xterm

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I've seen this question, and this one, and neither one is addressing my question. I have already used sudo update-alternatives to set Xterm as my default terminal. I much prefer Xterm as a terminal application, as it loads faster than gnome-terminal.

How can I get the right-click action "Open in Terminal", located in the Files application, to use Xterm? Changing the above defaults did not change this behavior, though I would have thought it should.

Thanks for your time!

default-programs xterm

2 Answers

  1. The "Open in terminal" right-click menu is provided by a nautilus extension, and hard coded to open gnome-terminal through dbus, so you cannot directly change that menu item.

    There are a couple of approaches you could try:

    1. Ubuntu 20.04: Install nautilus-extensions-fma. That was formerly known as "Nautilus actions". It allows you to add custom actions to the right-click menu. Ubuntu 18.04: You have to add a PPA.

    2. Create a nautilus script. Nautilus scripts are scripts in the ~/.local/share/nautilus/scripts folder. They appear under a "Scripts" entry in the right-click menu. You can assign a shortcut key to such script that will work from within nautilus.

    3. If you are sufficiently skilled with python, you may write a nautilus python script or change an existing one. nautilus-open-any-terminal supports a lot of terminal emulators, but xterm is not one of them.

    To remove the existing right-click menu for "Open in terminal", remove the package nautilus-extension-gnome-terminal.

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  2. How to OPEN TERMINAL HERE in Ubuntu 20.04

    For the sake of informing other users that may search for my same question ( I have landed here googling for the question How to OPEN TERMINAL HERE in Ubuntu 20.04 )

    It is built in in Nautilus

    Just browse to the directory you want in Nautilus and right click on the background of the window

    In the context menu you'll find the needed command

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