Apple's Terminal App Gets Colorful Redesign in macOS Tahoe

[neuropsychguy]

Oh no they didn’t!

Apple has adopted the, “SQUIRREL” methodology vs cutting bloat/bugs

Look shiny and we changed something, a thing that doesn’t need changing…

What bloat and bugs are you seeing in Terminal?

 

[theluggage]

Basically I oversimplified it You have 2 major systems, Unix-like (linux and macOS, ofcourse their are also a lot of differences) and Windows (where basically nothing is Unix except for WSL)

Well, yeah... the full genealogy of "*nix" is like Game of Thrones with tedious lawsuits replacing (most of) the sex and violence .

What's really relevant today are the POSIX standards which - all together - pretty much formulate what comprises a "Unix-like operating system". Both Linux and MacOS follow those standards, although I don't think most Linux distros are POSIX certified. Actual "Unix" certification and the right to call it UNIX(TM) is a layer on top of that.

macOS sprung from NextStep (which is why so many calls had "NS" in the name), which was based (among other things) on BSD Unix. So, macOS is a direct descendant of Unix.

True.
Still, the practical upshot is that the typical Linux distribution feels a lot more like a traditional Unix system than MacOS, including a GUI that evolved from the X11-based GUIs used by *nix systems back in the day, as opposed to NextStep. Whether that's a good or bad thing I'll leave dangling

Linux distros are starting to diverge from good old *nix, though - with things like systemd which is more like MacOS's launchd than the SysV or BSD way of doing things, and GUIs looking less and less like X.

The first couple of Mac OS X versions weren't Unix-certified and the BSD/Posix subsystem was an optional add-on.

I think there are actually a couple "UNIX certified" Linux distributions but the major ones are not.

There are none on the official list:

The Register of UNIX® Certified Products

If I obtained a copy of "Acme Unix(TM) Linux" and couldn't re-distribute the source without either re-registering with Open Group or ferreting out all references to Unix(TM) then I suspect Acme could be on a sticky wicket with regards to the GPL IANAL and won't claim that it would actually break the GPL, but I'm sure that there would be a great disturbance in the forums, as if millions of posters typed out in outrage and were never silenced...

where basically nothing is Unix except for WSL

Windows NT was actually POSIX compliant at one point - but only at the lowest C API level.

 

[jole]

What is it about Kitty that would be difficult to challenge? I'm not trying to argue. I genuinely don't know and am curious. I've tried Kitty before, but found the configuration annoying, so I typically use either use iTerm2 or Warp. What are Kitty's killer features?

Things I like in Kitty over the new Terminal in macOS 26:

• Borderless with no window titlebar — just the content
• Cursor move animation
• Terminal is quite buggy for how it renders text
  • Terminal adds one pixel extra space for some fonts breaking ascii graphics
  • Does not gracefully handle resize events
  • Some symbols do not work well with Nerdfonts + p10k (funnily even the Apple presentation screenshot in OP bugs by showing triangle on the prompt with different color from the bar next to it)
• No support for embedded images

All these are little things, but add up.

I think Apple could have played around more with Liquid Glass in there for allowing (optional) unique effects.

 

[seek3r]

Being really, really pedantic - Unix is (now) a set of standards for APIs, libraries, user utilities and command line tools, file organisation etc. along with a commercial certification and trademark licensing scheme, that can be implemented by a whole range of otherwise quite different OSs, whereas Linux technically refers to a specific OS kernel that is commonly combined with the GNU tools and a bunch of other GPL-licensed projects to make a range of Unix-like OS "distributions" (including Android).

...and AFAIK the only reason that GNU/Linux is not Unix is that the Open Systems Unix certification/licensing procedure (a) costs money and (b) a distro that contained claims to be "Unix" couldn't be re-distributed as required by the GPL. In reality, "Linux" feels more like using a traditional Unix system than MacOS.

Fair enough, I concede the point

 

[bsolar]

There are none on the official list:

You are right, I think there are none today but there were a few in the past that didn't renew the certification, e.g. EulerOS.

 

[ADGrant]

Still, the practical upshot is that the typical Linux distribution feels a lot more like a traditional Unix system than MacOS, including a GUI that evolved from the X11-based GUIs used by *nix systems back in the day, as opposed to NextStep. Whether that's a good or bad thing I'll leave dangling

Interestingly, X11 was not introduced until September of 1987 only a year before the NeXT computer. In those days traditional Unix meant a proprietary windowing system mostly used for multiple terminal windows or actually physical terminals.

I don't think someone running a cross platform IDE and a few terminal windows would notice much difference between MacOS and Linux except perhaps for the menu bar placement.

 

[HighwaySnowman]

Interestingly, X11 was not introduced until September of 1987 only a year before the NeXT computer. In those days traditional Unix meant a proprietary windowing system mostly used for multiple terminal windows or actually physical terminals.

I don't think someone running a cross platform IDE and a few terminal windows would notice much difference between MacOS and Linux except perhaps for the menu bar placement.

X11 caught on quick!

I don't think I touched a *nix system with a GUI until about '90, only dealt with command line before that. X11 was definitely a thing by then.

Menu bar placement is important, and the place it belongs is at the top of the screen. Makes it a LOT easier to get there, just slam the mouse up, no hunting around for it. It's probably the single best thing Apple ever did for GUIs.

 

[tny]

Which is better, macOS Terminal or Linux Terminal? Or are they the same thing?

There are two different parts here -- the actual terminal application, and the shell (the programming language and command set used in the terminal). Most of the good shells are available for both -- for instance, Ubuntu defaults to bash, the shell macOS used to default to, and macOS defaults to zsh, but either can be configured to use either or any of many other shell languages. The terminal applications are often tied to the window manager, so different Linux distributions will have different terminals; and on both Linux and macOS, you can install alternative terminal programs (as on macOS you can install iTerm).

 

[Watersplash]

I've installed the beta of macOS 26 but the Terminal settings look the same to me. Am I missing something, or is this not going to be added in until later?

 

[nutmac]

I've installed the beta of macOS 26 but the Terminal settings look the same to me. Am I missing something, or is this not going to be added in until later?

You need to choose SF Mono Terminal font, or use the theme that has the font configured already (e.g., Clear Dark).

It seems Apple is using Powerlevel10k, which needs to be installed on your own.

 

[Croak]

I've installed the beta of macOS 26 but the Terminal settings look the same to me. Am I missing something, or is this not going to be added in until later?

Apple provides the platform and font, will need to configure Terminal :

1. Duplicate Clear Dark (or Clear Light), so that the original profile is kept intact.

2. Install powerline-status. The Python that comes with macOS is fine.

pip3 install --user --force-reinstall powerline-status

3. Set up ~/.zshrc, this also avoids powerline-config not found error.

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/Library/Python/3.9/bin
. $(pip3 show powerline-status | grep Location | cut -d " " -f 2)/powerline/bindings/zsh/powerline.zsh

Restart Terminal and enjoy!

 

[PiccoDK]

While they're at it, hopefully they'll fix the annoying bug where the app automatically switches back to the first tab whenever the window is restored from minimized.

Holy smoke, they actually fixed it! This bug has been driving me crazy for years.

 

[cyb3rdud3]

Apple provides the platform and font, will need to configure Terminal :

1. Duplicate Clear Dark (or Clear Light), so that the original profile is kept intact.

2. Install powerline-status. The Python that comes with macOS is fine.

pip3 install --user --force-reinstall powerline-status

3. Set up ~/.zshrc, this also avoids powerline-config not found error.

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/Library/Python/3.9/bin
. $(pip3 show powerline-status | grep Location | cut -d " " -f 2)/powerline/bindings/zsh/powerline.zsh

Restart Terminal and enjoy!

But you can do all of that in any terminal for donkey years. So what is different then?

 

[Quotenfrau]

I recommend https://ghostty.org/ (source: https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty)

Ghostty is a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator that uses platform-native UI and GPU acceleration.