I rarely use CentOS as a desktop but purehate and myself set up a development box the other day to test some things. We needed the computer to not only function as a Linux server but also as a Desktop for some of the items we wanted to test. In doing so I have been playing around with various items and I find myself needing to open terminal windows on a regular basis so I wanted to know what the keyboard shortcut was to open a terminal window. The quick answer is that there is not a keyboard shortcut to open a terminal window by default on CentOS running the Gnome desktop environment. Below are some quick steps to add a keyboard shortcut to open a terminal window on a computer running the Gnome Desktop environment.

Gnome Desktop Environment: Create A Keyboard Shortcut To Open A Terminal Window

1. Open Keyboard Shortcuts Configuration Window: First you need to launch the Keyboard Shortcuts configuration window which can be done by clicking System in the top navigation menu on your Gnome desktop, select Preferences from the drop down menu, and then click Keyboard Shortcuts from the Preferences menu. This will launch the Keyboard Shortcuts configuration menu as displayed in the below image.

   

2. Locate Run A Terminal: Now in the Gnome Keyboard Shortcuts configuration window scroll down until you see “Run A Terminal” which is located under the Desktop sub section as displayed in the below image.

   

   Notice the “Run A Terminal”, which means to launch a new terminal window, keyboard shortcut is disabled by default in the Gnome Desktop Environment.

3. Modify Run A Terminal: Double click on Run A Terminal and then type the key combination you would like to be the one that launches a terminal window. In this example I click “Ctrl+t” or the control button and the “t” button at the same time to be the keyboard shortcut that opens a terminal window in the Gnome Desktop Environment. The below image shows the example of what the Keyboard Shortcuts configuration window will look like after it records the key combination.

   

4. Test Gnome Keyboard Shortcut: Now close the Keyboard Shortcut configuration window and test your new keyboard shortcut by clicking ctrl+t to see if a new terminal window is launched. If successful you should see a terminal window similar to the below image.

   

So now you can apply the same concept to any other keyboard shortcut you would like to create. Now launching terminal windows from the Gnome Desktop Environment on a CentOS Linux server should be much easier.

X Power Tools

Chris Tyler. O’Reilly Media 2008, Paperback, 272 pages, $21.07

Linux Annoyances for Geeks

Michael Jang. O’Reilly Media 2006, Paperback, 512 pages, $15.67

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 8:25 PM and is filed under Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.