Ghostty on Linux: Install, Themes and Config in 10 Minutes

Ghostty is a fast, native terminal emulator for Linux and macOS, and it’s the terminal I now run my AI coding tools in. In this guide I’ll show you how to install it on Linux, pick a theme with a web-based config generator, edit the config file by hand, and reload your changes without restarting. I’m on Debian, but the same steps work on most major distros once Ghostty is installed.

Prefer to watch? See the full walkthrough on YouTube. I build the whole thing on screen.

Why I switched to Ghostty

For months I used Konsole as my main terminal. It worked well, but I noticed it was using more and more system memory while I had Codex and other AI coding harnesses running in several tabs. On my machine, with roughly the same number of tabs open, Konsole was sitting at about 1.7 GB of memory while Ghostty was around 270 MB. It also felt lighter on CPU.

That’s one observation on one Debian machine, not a benchmark, so your numbers will depend on your distro, your workload and how many tabs you keep open. Still, if your terminal is where you spend most of your working day, it’s worth checking how much it’s using in your system monitor.

Ghostty’s own docs describe a “zero configuration” philosophy: it ships with sensible defaults, an embedded default font (JetBrains Mono) and built-in Nerd Font support, so you can use it straight away and only customize what you care about.

Step 1: Install Ghostty on Linux

Start at ghostty.org and open the download section. You’ll see options for macOS and Linux. On Linux, the docs list package-manager instructions for a long list of distros, including Alpine, Arch (via pacman), Gentoo, Fedora, openSUSE, Void, NixOS, Snap and Ubuntu.

Debian and Ubuntu

On my Debian install I simply ran:

sudo apt install ghostty

In my case apt reported that version 1.3.1 was already installed. Package availability depends on your release, so check before you assume apt will find it. According to the Ghostty install docs, Ghostty is in the official Ubuntu repository from Ubuntu 26.04, and there’s also a community-built .deb package for Ubuntu and Debian (the ghostty-ubuntu project on GitHub), which the docs say can sometimes be more up to date and is the only prebuilt option for older Ubuntu releases.

One thing to keep in mind: the Ghostty docs point out that community binary packages are built by third parties rather than the Ghostty project or your distro’s maintainers, so you’re trusting whoever built them. If that matters for your setup, your distro’s own package or a build from source is the safer route.

Fedora, AppImage and building from source

Fedora users can install from a COPR repository or from Terra, and there’s also a universal AppImage for any distro. You can build Ghostty from source as well, but honestly, on Debian or any of the major distros, the package manager is the simplest way to get going.

If you get stuck on the install for your distro, AI Income Lab is where I answer setup questions like this one alongside the courses.

Step 2: Pick a theme with a Ghostty config generator

You can write the whole config by hand, but there’s a faster way to get a good-looking terminal. Search for “Ghostty config” and you’ll find a community web tool at ghostty.zerebos.com, which describes itself as a config generator for Ghostty. It’s not part of the official Ghostty project, but it makes theming far quicker. I show this step on screen in the video.

1. Open the generator and go to the Colors section.
2. Choose a theme. Ghostty supports separate light and dark themes, so you can pick one for each.
3. Use the live preview to check how text looks. You can resize the preview window and type in it.
4. Adjust anything else you want, such as cursor color or cursor text color.
5. Go to Import / Export and copy the generated config to your clipboard.

If you’d rather stay in the terminal, Ghostty has hundreds of built-in themes. You can list them with:

ghostty +list-themes

Then set one in your config. The docs show this format, including the light/dark variant:

theme = Catppuccin Frappe
# or separate light and dark themes:
theme = dark:Catppuccin Frappe,light:Catppuccin Latte

Step 3: Edit your Ghostty config file

To open your config, right-click inside a Ghostty window, go to Config, and choose to open the config file. Paste in what you copied from the generator, then make any manual tweaks.

Ghostty’s config is a plain text file with simple key = value lines. Per the docs, on Linux it lives at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ghostty/config.ghostty (or config in versions before 1.2.3), which usually means ~/.config/ghostty/. Keys are lowercase and case-sensitive.

Here are the kinds of settings I changed in the video, with placeholder values you can swap for your own:

cursor-color = #f5e0dc
window-theme = dark
window-save-state = always
font-size = 13

• cursor-color sets the cursor color (hex or a named X11 color).
• window-theme controls the window chrome; dark forces the dark theme regardless of your system setting.
• window-save-state saves and restores window state such as position, size, tabs and splits. Some of it, like working directories, needs shell integration.
• font-size sets the font size in points, so it stays the same every time you open a window.

I also changed the window subtitle option. On GTK (Linux), window-subtitle can show the current working directory under the window title, which is handy when you’ve got several AI coding sessions open.

Step 4: Reload the config

You don’t need to restart Ghostty to see changes. Right-click, go to Config, and choose Reload Config. Your theme and settings update straight away. The docs note that not every option can be applied at runtime, so if something doesn’t change, open a new window or restart Ghostty.

After reloading, I opened a new window and started Codex. It worked exactly the same as it did in my old terminal, just with less memory used.

Step 5 (optional): Let an AI agent suggest config improvements

If you want help tuning your config, you can hand the job to an AI agent. In the video I opened Hermes Agent, pasted in the link to the Ghostty docs, and asked it to read the docs and suggest improvements for my config. It fetched the documentation, pulled out the useful options and started working on the config file.

I didn’t need it in the end, because the config generator had already done most of the work, but it’s a good option if you want to understand what every setting does. Just review any change an agent suggests before you keep it, and back up your config first.

The same goes for themes from the internet: Ghostty’s docs warn that a theme file can set any config option, not just colors, so read a theme from an untrusted source before you use it.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Assuming apt has Ghostty on every release. Check your distro’s packages first, then use the official docs’ options for your version.
• Installing a community binary without thinking about trust. The Ghostty docs are clear that third-party builds carry extra risk.
• Editing the wrong file. Use the right-click Config menu to open the file Ghostty is actually loading.
• Using uppercase keys. Keys are case-sensitive, and Ghostty always uses lowercase.
• Forgetting to reload. Changes don’t show until you reload the config or open a new window.
• Over-configuring on day one. The defaults are good. Change the theme and font size first, then add more as you need it.

Once your terminal is set up, the next step is putting it to work. Inside AI Income Lab you’ll find the coding workflows I run in Ghostty every day.

Is Ghostty worth switching to?

If you spend most of your day in a terminal, especially running AI coding tools like Codex or Claude Code in several tabs, Ghostty is well worth trying. In my setup it uses far less memory than my old terminal, the theming is quick with the config generator, and the config file is easy to read. It also runs on macOS, so you can keep the same config across machines.

I’m planning to run my AI coding harnesses in Ghostty from now on, and my upcoming tutorials will use it as well.

FAQ

Is Ghostty free?

Yes. Ghostty is free to download from ghostty.org, and the project’s code is on GitHub.

Does Ghostty work on Windows?

The download options on ghostty.org are for macOS and Linux. Check the official site for the current list of supported platforms.

Where is the Ghostty config file on Linux?

It’s loaded from $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ghostty/config.ghostty, which is usually ~/.config/ghostty/config.ghostty. Older versions used a file named config. The easiest way to open the right file is right-click, Config, then open the config file.

How do I change the theme in Ghostty?

Add a theme = Name line to your config, using any name from ghostty +list-themes, then reload the config. You can also generate a theme and settings with a web config generator and paste them in.

Do I need to build Ghostty from source?

No. Most people can install it with their distro’s package manager or one of the options in the official docs. Building from source is there if you want it, and the docs call it the safer option compared with community binaries.

Conclusion

Setting up Ghostty on Linux takes a few minutes: install it with your package manager, generate a theme, paste it into your config, tweak a few settings and reload. If your current terminal is eating memory while you run AI coding tools, try it on your own machine and compare. Watch the video above to see each step on screen.

If you’d rather not figure this out alone, join AI Income Lab for the courses, templates and help that go with these builds.