basicterm

A minimalist Linux terminal emulator written in C, utilizing SDL2 for keyboard input handling and text rendering. This project demonstrates low-level systems programming and graphics programming concepts.

Project Overview

Basicterm is a custom terminal emulator developed to provide hands-on experience with terminal implementation details and to deepen understanding of fundamental system tools. The project showcases C programming, SDL2 graphics programming, and POSIX terminal semantics.

Technical Implementation

The terminal emulator is built using:

SDL2 for window management and input handling
SDL2_ttf for text rendering
Custom escape sequence parsing for color support
Direct shell process communication via pseudoterminals

Current Features

Basic shell command execution
Keyboard input processing with backspace support
Partial ANSI color escape sequence parsing
Support for bash and dash shells
Cross-platform Linux compatibility

Development Status

This project is actively under development. Recent improvements include:

Migration from Raylib to SDL2 for better keyboard input handling
Implementation of basic text rendering pipeline
Foundation for ANSI escape sequence processing

Planned Enhancements

Complete ANSI escape sequence support
Multi-line text rendering optimization
Extended shell compatibility (Fish, ZSH)
Improved terminal state management

Build Instructions

Prerequisites:

SDL2 development libraries
SDL2_ttf development libraries

Install dependencies using your distribution's package manager, then build:

make build    # Build the project
make run      # Build and run

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.