» My dot Xdefaults

~/.Xdefaults is the configuration file for all X applications and while most nowadays provide configuration interfaces, some can only be configured there. rxvt-unicode is one of them, but it's probably the fastest X terminal emulator available today, both in terms of startup and render times. It is also exceptionally good at rendering unicode.

The default colors in terminals are quite.. well, let's say "flashy" and not necessarily sweet on the eye, to say the least. Some months ago, I ran over an Xdefaults configuration for rxvt-unicode that changes those colors to a nice-on-the-eye, consistent set of darker colors, which fit exceptionally well in a terminal with a black background. Unfortunately, I don't have the URL any more, and all credits go to the original author.

As a side note, rxvt-unicode also supports opening URLs in browsers, amongst many other things.

If you're interested, here is my rxvt-unicode configuration, and proceed as follows:

curl \
http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/files/dot.Xdefaults.txt \
>> ~/.Xdefaults
xrdb -merge <~/.Xdefaults
rpm -q rxvt-unicode || zypper in rxvt-unicode
urxvt &