The selected answer didn't work for me on fully updated Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, so I decided it was time for a more drastic approach. The solutions below are tested up to 16.04 LTS.
My old solution
Rename original gnome-terminal
executable to
gnome-terminal-original
:
cd /usr/bin
sudo mv gnome-terminal gnome-terminal-original
Create a new file in /usr/bin
named gnome-terminal
with the
following content:
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/gnome-terminal-original --maximize $@
Make it executable:
sudo chmod +x gnome-terminal
Now no matter how I open the terminal, it always opens maximized. The only downside I see for this approach is that you have to repeat these steps every time you might update gnome-terminal
with a new version via update manager or apt-get upgrade
.
Note: the $@
parameter means that all arguments that might get passed to gnome-terminal
will still get passed to gnome-terminal-original
, along with --maximize
argument.
A better solution
Install "wmctrl":
sudo apt-get install wmctrl
Add this line to the very end of your ~/.bashrc
file:
wmctrl -i -r $WINDOWID -b add,maximized_vert,maximized_horz
Repeat the second step for other user's .bashrc
files if needed, for example, for "root" user (/root/.bashrc
).
This solution will not affect the size of the terminal window initially, but rather maximize it shortly after it opens, usually in a matter of milliseconds. You can try moving the line you added in the second step to the beginning of .bashrc
file, to make the terminal maximize even earlier.