No matter how much I don’t like using Windows, I can’t seem to pull myself away from it, mainly because I don’t feel confident that the alternatives, I’m considering a Mac or something running Ubuntu, will provide me with suitable software alternatives to the programs I have come to use and love on a daily, or weekly basis. Having written that statement though and sat here thinking about it for a few minutes, that argument is now looking quite feeble, so I’ll use my other excuse: I just don’t have the money to change at the moment. Oh, but Ubuntu is free…

Anyway to the point of this post. I simply cannot stand trying to build websites on Windows and will always fight to get SSH access to a host when necessary. Having previously worked directly from and on a Linux based machine, I became quite attached to multiple desktops and Xterm. Being able to group Xterm windows on their own desktop was mighty handy. Xterms are so clean and simple in my opinion too, they make coding a pleasure.

For some time I have been using PuTTY Tray to connect into remote servers in order to work. It got to the point a few weeks ago though where having several separate PuTTY windows open was making my Windows task bar a mess and alt-tabbing between them was a massive pain in the arse. I set out to find a decent program that would allow grouping of multiple windows or applications in the one frame. I found many possibilities, but most had their fair share of issues or down-sides. Eventually I came across WinTabber. It’s a relatively small application, nothing fancy and it also has native support for PuTTY. I’ve been using WinTabber to house all my active PuTTY connections for a couple of months now and I have to say I’m very happy with it.

So with my terminals grouped, the only other thing left to do to make my PuTTY interface seem more like Xterm was to find a suitable Xterm style font. Now, this might be an easy task for someone with access to a machine that has Xterm installed with its native font, but I don’t have such access at present and even if I did, I would struggle to find the font in the first place. I spent some time searching the Internet for the name and/or an actual copy of the Xterm font, wishing it to be in True Type Font format, but had no success. Eventually I discovered the font ProggyCleanTT which lead me to the developer’s website where there are a range of programmer’s fonts to download. I’m very pleased to say, that set at 12-point, ProggyCleanTT is a darn good substitute for whatever the Xterm font is.

WinTabber + PuTTY + ProggyCleanTT = one very acceptable Windows based Xterm when you are working over SSH on a Linux based machine and can’t be bothered with all the extras of Cygwin.

This post is tagged: Linux, Software, ssh, windows, xterm