How can I get the geometry option working with the gnome-terminal command in a terminal?

Question

I can't get the geometry option working with the gnome-terminal command in Ubuntu 18.04 running Wayland.

For example, if I open up a terminal window and run the command gnome-terminal --geometry 80x10+100+200 I expect a new terminal window to open up with the dimensions 80 cols by 10 rows and offset by 100px / 200px for X / Y.

But somehow it seems the X and Y parameters are ignored because the terminal opens up centered in the screen, regardless of the X and Y parameters.

Is there a way to apply the X and Y parameters correctly?

Answer 1

On Wayland there's no way a client (e.g. gnome-terminal) could request or in any way influence the position where it appears on the screen. This is by design.

You can work it around by forcing gnome-terminal to run via the XWayland compatibility layer, that is, effectively making it an X11 application instead of a native Wayland one. You can do so by starting up GDK_BACKEND=x11 /usr/lib/gnome-terminal/gnome-terminal-server first, and then a gnome-terminal --geometry ... within ten seconds. Or you might want to entirely switch back to X11.