Among other things, tfm comes with a sidebar, tabs, a dual-pane view, and file previews. The usual file operations like copying, moving, renaming, and deleting are on board as well. What’s interesting: you don’t have to work exclusively with the keyboard. Tfm also supports the mouse, so you can select, move, and rename files by drag and drop, for example.

That way, tfm combines typical features of graphical file managers with the terminal environment. If you spend a lot of time there anyway, you can manage files and directories without opening a separate graphical app.

Installing from the AUR

You can find Tfm in the AUR (Arch User Repository). If you use an AUR helper like yay, you can install the binary version right away. On Arch Linux, this command is all you need:

$ yay -S tfm-tui-bin

After that, start the file manager with:

$ tfm

If you use a different distribution, the project page has instructions for the install script provided there. With it, you install the current version independently of your distribution’s packages.

Nerd Fonts for the icons

For tfm to show folders and files with the intended icons, you need a Nerd Font. These fonts come with additional characters and icons that terminal apps use to display folders, files, and other elements.

For this article, I’m using the Hack Nerd Font. On Arch Linux, the font is available directly in the official repositories and can be installed with pacman:

$ sudo pacman -S ttf-hack-nerd

For tfm to display the icons correctly, the Hack Nerd Font only has to be installed on your system. You don’t need to select the font in your terminal for that. You normally don’t need to refresh the font cache manually for a package from the Arch repositories either.

Beta with a few rough edges

Tfm is still in beta, and you’ll notice it most in how icons are displayed. In my tests, the Nerd Font symbols didn’t show up reliably on every start. Folders and other elements sometimes appear without the icons they’re supposed to have.

Restarting tfm or the terminal usually fixes it. What stands out: the icons come back on the next start even without any changes to the font cache, so the problems can’t be blamed solely on a broken installation of the font.

For graphical image previews, tfm needs a terminal that supports the Kitty Graphics Protocol. On Linux, Ghostty is a good choice, for example, and its Linux interface is built on GTK4. Gnome Terminal can’t offer this feature, because the underlying VTE library doesn’t support the Kitty Graphics Protocol.

The rest of the interface isn’t yet as stable or consistent as what you’re used to from established file managers, either. If you try tfm, start with files that don’t matter, and don’t trust important data to such young software on its own.

The most important keyboard shortcuts

Despite the mouse support, the keyboard plays an important role in tfm. You’ll find the most important commands in the following overview:

All in all, tfm is a likable find for me, especially for anyone who spends all day in the terminal anyway. The sidebar, tabs, dual-pane view, preview and mouse control add a level of comfort you normally don’t get on the command line. If you like, you can even switch on animations – a video on Reddit shows what that looks like.

Keep the quirks of the beta phase in mind, though, above all the icon rendering and the interface, which isn’t quite polished yet. I’ll keep following the development, and right now I’d mainly recommend tfm for trying it out – preferably with non-critical files until the software has matured a bit.

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That’s why Rutile is an interesting project to watch. The developers aren’t simply continuing Tilix. They are rebuilding the terminal emulator completely in Rust, while keeping the same way of working. The goal isn’t to reinvent anything, but to create a modern implementation that fits right into current GNOME systems with GTK4 and libadwaita.

A proven concept on a modern foundation

Many terminal emulators differ mainly in how they look or in a few minor extra features. Rutile takes a different approach. The goal is to carry over the way Tilix works as completely as possible and put it on a modern technical foundation. Existing users should feel at home right away.

The app uses GTK4, libadwaita and VTE4, so it benefits from current libraries of the GNOME desktop. At the same time, the developers have chosen Rust as the programming language. In the long run, that promises a more maintainable codebase and makes it possible to build new features on a modern architecture.

Flexible terminal splitting

Rutile takes its most important feature straight from Tilix. You can split the terminal window recursively, both horizontally and vertically, and every pane can be split again. That gives you flexibly nested workspaces, without the app being locked into a fixed grid or a particular window layout.

In everyday use, this way of working has plenty of advantages. On the left, for example, you can watch log files while several servers or containers are open on the right. You switch between the individual panes comfortably with the keyboard. That saves mouse movements and keeps things flowing when you’re working on more complex tasks.

Other terminals like Ghostty offer this feature too, but you have to memorize key combinations for it. Alternatively, you can of course use a terminal multiplexer like tmux. The same applies there, though. Even if it’s not a lot of key combinations: personally, I simply want buttons for this.

Multiple independent sessions

Besides the freely splittable terminal panes, Rutile supports multiple separate sessions. Each session has its own window layout and its own working context. That way you can keep different projects or tasks neatly apart without having to open several program windows.

You switch between sessions either with a keyboard shortcut or through a sidebar. The sidebar shows small thumbnails of each working environment and is hidden by default. If you need it, just show it from the toolbar, and you’ll find it easier to keep track of things even with lots of open sessions.

Synchronized input

One feature I find especially handy is synchronized input. When you enable it, Rutile sends every keystroke to several terminal panes in a session at the same time. That saves a lot of time when you need to run identical commands on several servers or virtual machines.

You can exclude individual terminal panes from the shared input at any time. That way, specific systems can get different commands without you having to turn off synchronization completely. Still, a bit of caution is a good idea, because a faulty command will otherwise run on all connected systems at the same time, too.

Familiar Controls

The keyboard shortcuts also follow the original closely. With Ctrl+Shift+O and Ctrl+Shift+E you split the window horizontally or vertically. Ctrl+Shift+W closes the active pane, while the arrow keys switch between the individual terminal panes.

You open new sessions with Ctrl+Shift+T. To switch between existing sessions, press Ctrl+Shift+Page Up or Page Down. If you prefer working with the mouse, you can also reach the same functions through the toolbar or the context menu of each terminal pane.

Still in an early stage of development

Rutile is still at the very beginning of its development. The first version deliberately focuses on the most important features. Things like a Quake mode, saving complete sessions, desktop notifications, or Nautilus integration are meant to come later, once the existing features work reliably.

I think this is a sensible approach. Instead of shipping as many features as possible early on, the project first concentrates on a stable core. Especially with tools that many users rely on every day, reliability and a consistent way of working matter more than a long feature list.

What is really missing right now are translations. Some dialogs currently show up only in French. You also can’t change the terminal colors directly in the settings yet. The default color scheme makes programs like Midnight Commander hard to read in places. That said, the current version of Rutile was only released a few days ago, so I expect something will happen here soon.

Installation

On Arch Linux, Rutile is available in the AUR both as a source package and as a precompiled version. For Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora, the developers provide ready-made DEB and RPM packages. You can also download a standalone binary, as long as the required GTK4 components are already installed. All the installation details are on the project’s GitHub page.

If you have been using Tilix for years and want to move to a modern GTK4 foundation, you should keep an eye on Rutile. A few features are still missing, but what I have seen of its development so far looks very promising. The project has a clear focus and could grow into a worthy successor to Tilix.

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What is Termsonic?

Termsonic is a Subsonic client for the terminal with a rather nice and easy-to-use terminal user interface (TUI). It runs on Linux, Windows and macOS and works with most Subsonic-compatible servers. Among others, it has been successfully tested with Navidrome.

The app plays FLAC, OGG and MP3 files. One big advantage: these formats are decoded natively in Go, so there are hardly any external dependencies. You don’t need to install ffmpeg or LAME.

Besides plain playback, Termsonic lets you browse your music library by artists, albums and playlists. A simple queue management lets you play your songs in a sensible order.

Installation on Arch Linux

On Arch Linux, you can conveniently install Termsonic from the Arch User Repository (AUR). If you use the AUR helper yay, the following command is all you need. After the installation, you can start the player with termsonic.

### Arch Linux, Manjaro und Co.
$ <strong>yay -S termsonic-git</strong>

On other distributions such as Ubuntu or Debian, Termsonic is rarely found in the repositories. Thanks to the few dependencies, though, it is very easy to build the program from source yourself.

<strong>$ git clone https://git.sixfoisneuf.fr/termsonic</strong>
$ <strong>cd termsonic</strong>
$ <strong>go build ./cmd/termsonic/</strong>
$ <strong>sudo cp termsonic /usr/local/bin</strong>

Configuring Navidrome

On the first start, you enter the URL and the credentials for your Subsonic server (Navidrome in my case). Right after that, you see your music collection. With [F1] you get a tree view of the collection. [F2] shows the current queue. [F3] shows the playlists created on the server. Under [F4] you can change the settings again.

Tip: If you use a “proper” terminal app such as the one from the GNOME desktop environment or, as here, Tilix, you can also operate Termsonic with the mouse.

With [L] you jump to the next song. [P] pauses or resumes playback. With [/] you open a search field that filters the list of artists. At the top right, Termsonic shows the song that is currently playing plus the matching artist. Frills like the album cover are not something Termsonic offers, though.

Termsonic is an interesting alternative for everyone who wants to manage and play their music right in the terminal. The minimalist approach with few dependencies makes for a lean, resource-friendly app, perfect for lightweight systems or underpowered laptops.

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