Introduction

According to the manual page, URxvtd is same with URxvt but runs as a daemon that can open multiple terminal windows within the same process. Advantages of running a urxvt daemon include faster creation time for terminal windows and a lot of saved memory. The disadvantage is a possible impact on stability. If the main program crashes, all processes in the terminal windows are terminated.

How To Use

Start The Daemon

From my Urxvt Configurations, nothing needs to be changed. We only need to tell URxvt to start the daemon mode at the startup. I use Openbox, so I edit the ~/.config/openbox/autostart file to add urxvtd -q &. Then the URxvt daemon will be launched on the next login.

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#!/bin/bash
export PATH="${PATH}:$HOME/.scripts"
compton -b
xbacklight -set 10
hsetroot -center ~/.wallpaper.jpg
xset +fp ~/.fonts/misc/
urxvtd -q &
xsettingsd &
conky | lemonbar -g x28 \
-f -*-rissole-* -f -*-waffle-* \
-B "#141c21" -F "#93a1a1" &
info

The -q flag means quiet. This option will suppress the output messages (errors and warnings will still be logged).

Launching The Terminal

URxvtd acts as server, Now we need to launch the client. Instead of urxvt, the command to launch URxvt in client mode is urxvtc. So make a keybind and a menu entry to launch urxvtc command.

  • In the rc.xml I add:
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        <!-- Super + Enter to launch the terminal -->
        <keybind key="W-Return"> 
            <action name="Execute">
                <command>urxvtc</command>
            </action>
        </keybind>
  • And in the menu.xml I add:
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        <item label="Terminal emulator">
            <action name="Execute">
                <execute>urxvtc</execute>
            </action>
        </item>
  • We can also launch it from dmenu too. Just make sure you pick urxvtc, instead of urxvt.

Resources Usage

I feel launching a new terminal is faster than in normal mode. And the memory usage is also decreased. The terminals are counted as two instances, but the shell remains one instance per terminal. I open four terminal windows including htop.

info

When I launched URxvt in normal mode. The instance is also counted as two, even only one terminal opened. So, don’t complain for two instances for four terminals in daemon mode.

The process tree tells us that four instances of fish are attached into one URxvtd process.

ps_mem command tells us that the two instance of urxvtd (it’s four terminal) only takes 10.5MB of RAM.

Optional

I use Debian, so I want to follow the Debian Alternatives guidelines. Instead of hardcoded urxvtc command, I keep the traditional x-terminal-emulator command in my keybind to launch the default terminal. And then I set urxvtc as the default terminal.

  • rc.xml
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        <!-- Super + Enter to launch the terminal --> 
        <keybind key="W-Return"> 
            <action name="Execute">
                <command>x-terminal-emulator</command>
            </action>
        </keybind>
  • menu.xml
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        <item label="Terminal emulator">
            <action name="Execute">
                <execute>x-terminal-emulator</execute>
            </action>
        </item>
  • Add urxvtc entry to the list of x-terminal-emulator (root access required)
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update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/x-terminal-emulator x-terminal-emulator /usr/bin/urxvtc 100
  • Set urxvtc as the default terminal emulator (root access required)
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update-alternatives --set x-terminal-emulator /usr/bin/urxvtc

As Always

Thanks for reading!