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OS: Windows 10 Version 10.0.19045 Build 19045

I moved from MacOS to Windows 10. I'm missing a lot the shells I had there (bash and zsh) as well as the terminal emulator (iTerm2). I'm looking for a good substitute, which allows me to connect to remote Linux servers in SSH. I'm asking a single question, instead of one for the shell and one for the terminal, because it looks like on Windows some apps ship both a terminal and a terminal. Anyway, answers pointing to a combination of two different apps X and Y are fine, as long as terminal X can run shell Y.

Strict requirements

  • easy to install (no compilation from source!)
  • free, preferably open source
  • the shell must be bash or zsh, with the usual features (tab completion, reverse-i search, etc.)
  • SSH connection to remote servers, file transfer, possibility to add a private SSH key so that I don't need to enter my password every time I connect to the remote server
  • tabs
  • copy/paste text using mouse, inside the terminal and from the terminal to the Windows clipboard
  • compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11

Nice to have

  • fast rendering (I used Hyper years ago, and 😨)
  • configure the prompt using Oh-my-zsh or something similar
  • splits windows, tab tearout
  • being able to copy text from a tmux session on the remote server, to the Windows clipboard. This would actually be a requirement, but I had a hard time finding a terminal which allowed this even on MacOS (basically, the only one was iTerm 2), so I decided to put it as a nice to have.
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  • What have you tried so far? Windows comes with WSL/WSL2 environment so you have a real Linux with file-system access to Windows files.
    – Robert
    Aug 30 at 15:19
  • Any particular reason for Windows 10 and not 11? as mentioned by @Robert above, WSL2 is the best way to utilize it.
    – Lockszmith
    Aug 30 at 15:48
  • @Lockszmith WSL2 works fine with Windows 10 and 11, so no need to use 11.
    – Robert
    Aug 30 at 16:00
  • Sorry about that, you are correct @Robert, I rememberd incorrectly, WSL2 was a major upgrade, and was introduced after a Windows 10 and 11 major upgrade (21H1 and 21H2). Apologies... it has been over 2 years now since that point - getting old.
    – Lockszmith
    Aug 31 at 13:14

1 Answer 1

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Like CygWin?

https://www.cygwin.com/

And as far as tabbed terminal, W11 does this native now, and openssh built in, makes tabbed ssh sessions seamless.

Possibly tabby if stuck in W10 world. https://tabby.sh/

You may find some alternatives in the WSL as well, think of it like a quasi VM / Reverse Wine. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about

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  • I second this, these are excellent options. I would add that Tabby is probably a better option even in Windows 11, with its SSH plugin with support for tunneling and SCP file transfer, and it's profile/config synchronization options.
    – Lockszmith
    Aug 30 at 15:55

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