Hi, all.

On the weekend I installed Ubuntu onto a 2011 Macbook Pro - it's really quite quick and functional for a nearly 15 year old machine.

Anyway, one thing I'm really struggling with is finding a terminal to use for BBSing. I'm currently in Qodem, however I am not digging its use of the standard terminal font or the fact it adjusts the row / col count rather than scaling the window if you try to maximise / full-screen it.

I never expected to have such trouble getting others to work, though. I'm on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and I've tried:

- Syncterm via snap - installs a broken version that can't resolve hostnames or connect to anything

- Syncterm via Meatlotion's installer script - installs and can connect but crashes after the login screen of (e.g.) Magnum BBS with a font render error

- Icyterm via source - refuses to run due to some random type conversion error

- Icyterm via .deb download - similar to above but with a different type

Can anyone recommend me a terminal that works on current Linux setups and does 80x25 full screen, ideally with a VGA font like MuffinTerm does?

This is the last position I expected to be in, I thought I'd have loads of options!

Thanks,

BobW
--- SBBSecho 3.33-Linux
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I never expected to have such
trouble getting others to work,
though. I'm on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
and I've tried:

My main computer is running Ubuntu 22.04 on a 10+ year old Dell laptop so not exactly the same.

Are you able to build SyncTerm from source? That's how I do it and haven't had any issues.


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Re: Re: ANSI terminal clients for Linux
By: slacker to Bob Worm on Mon Dec 15 2025 21:55:04

Hi, slacker.

Are you able to build SyncTerm from source? That's how I do it and haven't had any issues.

That's what Meat's script does - pulls a couple of dependencies, grabs the latest source and compiles it.

Possibly I could pull a slightly older version and see if that behaves any better? It's a bit concerning to me that the snap version is so thoroughly broken - like nobody would ever release a package that behaved like that.

Aside from a couple of Mac-isms, though (right click no worky, scrolling is a bit wild in some apps), everything else seems to behave well. Although to be honest I've mostly been taking advantage of the DVD drive to watch some old stoner movies :)

BobW
--- SBBSecho 3.33-Linux
* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - magnumbbs.net (21:1/205)

Hello Bob!

15 Dec 25 21:11, you wrote to all:

Can anyone recommend me a terminal that works on current Linux setups
and does 80x25 full screen, ideally with a VGA font like MuffinTerm
does?

Netrunner from the mystic bbs website.

https://www.mysticbbs.com/downloads.html


Vorlon


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Re: ANSI terminal clients for Linux
By: Vorlon to Bob Worm on Tue Dec 16 2025 14:10:26

Hi, Vorlon.

Netrunner from the mystic bbs website. https://www.mysticbbs.com/downloads.html

Thanks for the tip - I will give that a try!

BobW
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* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - magnumbbs.net (21:1/205)

Re: ANSI terminal clients for Linux
By: Vorlon to Bob Worm on Tue Dec 16 2025 14:10:26

Hi, Vorlon.

Netrunner from the mystic bbs website. https://www.mysticbbs.com/downloads.html

I didn't wait until later - I had the old MBP out doing some legitimate work so I thought I'd install Netrunner while it was booted. On it now and it works perfectly.

I just remembered, actually, that Netrunner was the only thing I could get to run on the Windows XP netbook that I got given the same time as this. For some reason it works the XP machine really hard so it gets hot and runs the battery down but it seems a bit less demanding on here :)

Thanks again!

BobW
--- SBBSecho 3.33-Linux
* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - magnumbbs.net (21:1/205)

On 15 Dec 2025 at 09:11p, Bob Worm pondered and said...

Hi, all.

On the weekend I installed Ubuntu onto a 2011 Macbook Pro - it's really quite quick and functional for a nearly 15 year old machine.

Anyway, one thing I'm really struggling with is finding a terminal to
use for BBSing. I'm currently in Qodem, however I am not digging its use of the standard terminal font or the fact it adjusts the row / col count rather than scaling the window if you try to maximise / full-screen it.

I never expected to have such trouble getting others to work, though.
I'm on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and I've tried:

- Syncterm via snap - installs a broken version that can't resolve hostnames or connect to anything

- Syncterm via Meatlotion's installer script - installs and can connect but crashes after the login screen of (e.g.) Magnum BBS with a font
render error

- Icyterm via source - refuses to run due to some random type conversion error

- Icyterm via .deb download - similar to above but with a different type

Can anyone recommend me a terminal that works on current Linux setups
and does 80x25 full screen, ideally with a VGA font like MuffinTerm does?

This is the last position I expected to be in, I thought I'd have loads
of options!

I have an X11 version of SyncTERM 1.6b compiled and running on my Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS x86_64. I'll put it up for download on Madman BBS. Look for it in the BBS Utilities dir.

syncterm_lnx86.zip
SyncTERM 1.6b - X11
Precompiled SynchTERM 1.6b for Linux.
Compiled on Ubuntu 24.04.3 x86_64.

"Amy Pond, there's something you better understand about me 'cause it's
important, and one day your life may depend upon it. I am definitely a Mad
Man with a Blue Box."
.oO Madman with a Blue Box BBS Oo.oO madmanbbs.ddns.net Oo.

... I don't want to go!

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Re: Re: ANSI terminal clients for Linux
By: Gryphon to Bob Worm on Fri Jan 16 2026 11:09:45

I have an X11 version of SyncTERM 1.6b compiled and running on my Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS x86_64. I'll put it up for download on Madman BBS. Look for it in the BBS Utilities dir.

Cheers, Gryphon. It'll be interesting to see if that works on the Mac.

BobW
--- SBBSecho 3.34-Linux
* Origin: >>> Magnum BBS <<< - magnumbbs.net (21:1/205)

Hello Bob!

15 Dec 25 21:11, you wrote to all:

I never expected to have such trouble getting others to work, though.
I'm on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and I've tried:

You've had quite a few problems with BBS terminals. Besides the ones already mentioned, there's Magiterm, with the source code included on its website, if you need to compile it. Otherwise, as others have recommended, you can use syncterm or icy_term, but in an AppImage, which avoids library issues.

https://talismanbbs.org/other/



--- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20250409
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