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There is this proposed solution to disable the blinking cursor in Gnome terminal. However, it no longer seems to work for Gnome 3.8. The option /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default in Gconf does not exist.

So, what is a working solution for Gnome 3.8?

3 Answers 3

16

Try (in a terminal):

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-blink false

As your can see the key has been moved to org.gnome.desktop.interface (via GSettings), so you can access it via dconf-editor if you prefer so.

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  • 1
    To disable only in gnome-terminal in Gnome 3.8 and above, try: dconf write /org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:<profile-uid>/cursor-blink-mode "'off'". The profile UID can be obtained from the profile preferences. Thanks to ArchWiki docs for the help.
    – g13n
    Mar 28, 2015 at 17:23
4

None of the above worked for me on Debian Jessie. I worked out the following solution from recent gnome docs

## Find profile, see also Edit -> Profile Preferences -> Profile ID
gsettings get org.gnome.Terminal.ProfilesList list

## Substitute the relevant profile for UUID below - but include all / and :
gsettings set org.gnome.Terminal.Legacy.Profile:/org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:UUID/ cursor-blink-mode off

## Disable globally (except gnome-terminal has its own config)
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface cursor-blink false

To automate this for all profiles, enter in bash

for uuid in $(gsettings get org.gnome.Terminal.ProfilesList list | tr -d "[',]"); do
    gsettings set org.gnome.Terminal.Legacy.Profile:/org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:${uuid}/ cursor-blink-mode off
done

This retrieves the UUIDs from the profile list as above with gsettings, and removes unneeded characters [',]. The resulting list is used in setting the cursor-blink-mode to off.

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  • Well, that is certainly intuitive, and obviously much better than the old "toggle the checkbox" interface... WTF are they thinking?
    – Nemo
    Jul 6, 2017 at 21:19
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Try this. To disables cursor blinking desktop-wide:Just press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open Terminal. When it opens, run the command(s) below:

gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/interface/cursor_blink --type bool false

To disable blinking just for Gnome Terminal’s Default profile:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/cursor_blink_mode --type string off

Source:M.Friedrich

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  • Hi Mitch. This does not work. The cursor in the Terminal is still blinking. Furthermore, it is exactly the same approach I have referred to and also had described that it is not working with Gnome 3.8. Jun 23, 2013 at 11:29
  • I have changed the commands in my answer. Try it, and let me know.
    – Mitch
    Jun 23, 2013 at 11:40
  • Unfortunately still not working. Does it work for you? Jun 23, 2013 at 12:05

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