Zutty: Zero-Cost Unicode Teletype, High-End Terminal for Low-End Systems
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
git.hq.sig7.seTechstory
calmmixed
Debate
40/100
Terminal EmulatorsGPU AccelerationLow-End Systems
Key topics
Terminal Emulators
GPU Acceleration
Low-End Systems
Zutty is a high-performance terminal emulator for low-end systems that uses GPU acceleration, sparking discussion about its features, stability, and Unicode support.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Moderate engagementFirst comment
29m
Peak period
9
6-9h
Avg / period
4.4
Comment distribution22 data points
Loading chart...
Based on 22 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Sep 23, 2025 at 10:07 PM EDT
3 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Sep 23, 2025 at 10:36 PM EDT
29m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
9 comments in 6-9h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Sep 26, 2025 at 12:00 AM EDT
3 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45355462Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 1:08:48 PM
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
Dual GPU nvidia and integrated Intel, was running the latest Ubuntu LTS at the time with all updates.
Typically it's a RAM issue, or power stability issue or a graphics card issue/firmware causing instant reboots
They're running Ubuntu.
GPU drivers have always been full of bugs and will always be, since modern GPUs are ridiculously complex and designed for speed rather than reliability.
The typing latency on zutty is the biggest feature for me. Everything feels snappy.
I understand these things are complicated for terminals but its weird to so thoroughly emphasize unicode and then not do a significant portion of unicode.
I agree it's an awkward situation: ye olde xterm and rxvt can render emoji outside of the BMP, while zutty doesn't seem to be able to.
The documentation is a pleasure to read, though.
Even with the one-codepoint-per-cell model, what planes one can cover is simply a matter of whether an integer is 16-bit or 24-bit/32-bit. In the Zutty code, it's a 16-bit integer, and I suspect that that is a knock-on effect of the particular way that it flattens fonts out and maps code points to glyph bitmaps, which isn't the only way that one could do that.
https://tomscii.sig7.se/zutty/wiki/FAQ.html#How%20do%20I%20c...
* https://hu.wiktionary.org/wiki/zutty
* https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Hungarian_words_Z
Francophones are going to be thinking of something else. (-:
* https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/zut
Why would one need a gpu accelerated terminal? What's the use case here?
I mean, I've worked on connections offering a an mbit of throughput. That was enough for the kind of work I'm doing.
I really do not understand what this is for, can someone enlighten me please?
Font rendering is hard:
https://faultlore.com/blah/text-hates-you/
https://pandasauce.org/post/linux-fonts/
https://behdad.org/text2024/
So much that Slug is a thing:
https://sluglibrary.com/
Opting into anything higher than 1920x1080 seems uncomfortable for me.
Maybe I just get old. I find it hard to read fonts on higher resolutions and it seems like other people do as well..
16pt Lucida Console on 1920x1080 just works way too well for me to even consider switching to anything else.
Of course, that came with some pains. Managing windows was time consuming, so i3 came into the picture. rxvt and st got slow, so zutty came to the rescue.
But I would be a liar if I didn't say that I miss 1024x768 with pixel-perfect fonts and UI widgets.
Edit: just the web view is locked. Read the homepage, it tells you how to access the code (be respectful though, don't hug the site to death)
Said to be very stable, runs for months, compliant enough to run Emacs with mouse support.