Annoying blinking cursor in console

Question

hi everybody,
i've always been annoyed by blinking things. i don't really know the reason why. so when installing pretty much any desktop environment, i immediately turn blinking cursors off (if i can). i'm using gnome, where it's simple to set up for both the terminal (i use guake) and the standard applications. but since i'm low on ram and some tasks are better accomplished on the command line anyway, i grew more and more annoyed by the constant blinking.
searching around, i found these pages, where the solution is nicely documented:
http://linuxgazette.net/137/anonymous.html
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CursorOnLinuxConsole
basically, all you have to do is use an escape sequence. but if you insert it only in your .whatevershellrc, the blinking cursor will return after opening a programme, e.g. nano. so you have to follow the instructions on the emacswiki page.
oh, one more thing: afaik, the best cursor is simply an inverted (and, of course, non-blinking) block. none of the pages had an example for that. if you agree with me, here's the command for it:
echo -n -e '\e[?17;14;224c'
just thought i'd share this. have fun. :)
EDIT: it's better without a newline, so i added '-n' to echo.
Last edited by bamdad (2010-05-28 21:41:51)

Answer 1

you could try setting the global preferences in system settings > keyboard > cursor blinks in text fields. unfortunately, i don't have access to a gnome 3 session currently, so i can't check for you.
edit: if you've already done that, make sure that guake likes your current gtk theme (if it looks ugly, you know that it doesn't follow your global settings).
Last edited by bamdad (2011-05-29 11:34:29)