Slayer_X

My Journey to the Ultimate Terminal: Why I’m Using Ghostty in Linux and MacOS

I’ve spent years exploring different terminal emulators. As a long-time KDE user, Konsole was my home for a long time. However, when the “new wave” of GPU-accelerated terminals arrived, I started chasing performance. I moved to Alacritty, then Kitty, and finally discovered Ghostty in early 2025. I haven’t looked back since.

What makes Ghostty special is how it balances raw power with extreme simplicity. While it works perfectly out of the box, I’m a firm believer in personalizing the tools I use every day.

Some features

GPU Acceleration: Uses Metal (macOS) or OpenGL (Linux) for near-zero input lag and buttery-smooth scrolling.
Native UI: Unlike other cross-platform terminals, it uses platform-native tabs and windows (GTK4 on Linux, SwiftUI on macOS) for a seamless look.
GPU Ligatures: One of the few terminals that renders complex font ligatures (like => or !=) directly on the GPU for maximum speed.
Secure Entry: Includes a “Secure Keyboard Entry” mode to prevent other apps from “sniffing” sensitive data like passwords.
Embeddable Core: Built as a library (libghostty), meaning its engine can be tucked inside other applications or IDEs.

One of the coolest features I found is its native support for shaders.

What is a Shader?

In the context of a terminal, a shader (specifically a GLSL fragment shader) is a small program that runs directly on your GPU. Instead of your computer just “printing text,” the shader calculates how every single pixel should look in real-time. This allows you to add visual effects—like CRT scanlines, retro grain, or even falling snow—without slowing down your CPU.

You can find a nice collection of shaders here: https://github.com/0xhckr/ghostty-shaders

My Minimalist Setup

I love that I can achieve a beautiful, functional setup with just five lines of code. Here is my current ~/.config/ghostty/config:

Bash

theme = Ayu
font-family = "Hack Nerd Font Mono"
font-size = 14
custom-shader = ~/.config/ghostty/shaders/just-snow.glsl
background-opacity = 0.85

That’s it. Just five lines to go from a standard prompt to a hardware-accelerated, snow-dusted workspace.
Ghostty terminal

Finding Peace on the Prairies: Why I Chose Winnipeg

Sipping a coffee at any cafe in the city or walking through Assiniboine Park, I’m always struck by a profound sense of calm. This feeling was a major reason my family and I chose to build our life here in Winnipeg. For us, it was a conscious choice for safety, and a significant part of that was Canada’s sensible approach to guns.

The statistics on gun violence globally are sobering. While no country is perfect, the data shows a clear difference. In many places, gun violence is a leading cause of fear and tragedy. Here in Canada, strong regulations like the ban on assault-style firearms and strict licensing create a different reality. The focus is on responsibility and community safety, which results in a far lower rate of gun-related deaths compared to our neighbour to the south.

Living in Winnipeg, I appreciate this balanced approach. I know that hunters and sport shooters can still pursue their activities safely and legally, but the most dangerous weapons are not in general circulation. This isn’t about politics for me; it’s about peace of mind. It’s about feeling secure in my community, whether I’m downtown at The Forks or in my own neighbourhood. By the way, I am aware of the statistics saying that Winnipeg is one of the most dangerous cities of Canada, but based on the facts that I lived in Peru most of my life, there is no comparison, here I feel much more safe than in any city of Peru or South America.

Choosing Canada, and specifically Winnipeg, meant choosing a life where me and my family will have peace of mind, in addition, Winnipeg is not a big city, it was super clear for us that we don’t want to live in a big city anymore. Winters are hard but nothing compared with living in peace.

Hasta siempre Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa

I am doing an exception, this post will be in spanish because I feel I will express better using my mother tongue

Ayer, domingo 13 de abril, estaba viendo el partido de mi amado Universitario de Deportes contra el Melgar de Arequipa. Íbamos perdiendo 1-0 cuando uno de los comentaristas anunció una noticia terrible: Mario Vargas Llosa había fallecido en Lima a los 89 años. Sentí un shock inicial, pero seguí viendo el partido. Curiosamente, Mario Vargas Llosa, al igual que yo, era hincha de Universitario. Nuestro equipo remontó y ganó por un contundente 4-1.

Hoy reflexioné sobre la partida de MVLL. Lo conocí a través de “Los Cachorros”, y el personaje de “Pichulita” Cuéllar me impactó profundamente. Yo tendría 12 o 13 años y me había convertido en un lector voraz. Luego leí “La ciudad y los perros”, “Pantaleón y las visitadoras”, “La casa verde”, y creo que tenía 18 o 19 años cuando leí la que, para mí, es su obra cumbre: “La guerra del fin del mundo”. Fue realmente impactante y convirtió a MVLL en una especie de superhéroe para mí. Me volví un fan incondicional. En ese momento, ya había perdido las elecciones presidenciales contra el nefasto Alberto Fujimori. Si hubiera podido votar, no habría dudado en hacerlo por Mario.

Con el paso de los años, seguí leyendo su obra, confirmando que era un escritor excepcional, el mejor escritor peruano que había leído. Sin embargo, con el tiempo, leí menos, influenciado por internet. Esto hizo que disminuyera mi lectura de libros y, por ende, no pude leer la obra completa de MVLL, aunque leí 11 de sus obras.

Con los años, mi superhéroe se fue desdibujando. Siempre se dice que hay que separar al artista de la obra, pero me resultaba difícil conciliar al Mario escritor, intachable y uno de mis favoritos, con el hecho de que defendiera la tauromaquia, algo que repruebo. Además, Mario fue un feroz crítico de Alberto Fujimori, pero años después apoyó a su hija Keiko Fujimori en su intento por alcanzar la presidencia. Esto me decepcionó profundamente. Recientemente, aceptó una condecoración de Dina Boluarte, después de que su gobierno asesinara a 50 personas en protestas pacíficas. Mario, crítico de las dictaduras, terminó apoyando a quienes compartían sus características.

El día que anunciaron su Premio Nobel, me alegré mucho. Siempre pensé que merecía ese reconocimiento. Este justo premio confirmó públicamente su monumental obra, que perdurará en el tiempo. Tu legado es enorme, aunque me apena que se vea manchado por tus decisiones políticas. Hasta siempre, Mario.

Super Whisper: Ditch the Keyboard, Chat with Your Computer

Tired of typing everything out? Seriously, in this day and age, shouldn’t we be talking to our computers more? Well, guess what? You can! Say hello to Super Whisperer (www.superwhisper.com), the tool that lets you ditch the keyboard and just… talk.

This is my 1st week using Super Whisper and I am so happy 🙂

Why Yell at Your Screen Instead of Typing?

Look, we all know typing is a drag. It slows you down, messes with your flow, and can even hurt your wrists. With Super Whisperer, you can:

Get Stuff Done Faster: Ideas flow way quicker when you just say ’em out loud, right?
Save Your Wrists: No more carpal tunnel worries!
Multitask Like a Boss: Talk while you, like, make coffee or something.
Make Life Easier: Super helpful for anyone who finds typing tricky.

Apps Galore – Your Voice, Your Way

Super Whisperer plays nice with tons of apps. Wanna dictate emails in Gmail? Done. Need to voice-code in VS Code? Easy peasy. You can use it with:

Office stuff (Word, Excel, the whole gang)
Email (Gmail, Outlook, you name it)
Browsers (Chrome, Firefox, etc.)
Code editors (VS Code, PyCharm, and more)
And way more apps!

Make it Yours – Custom Profiles

This is where it gets cool. You can create profiles to fit your exact needs. Coders, writers, project managers – everyone wins.

Code with Your Voice: Imagine saying, “make a Python function, name it calculate area…” and boom, code appears! Works with Python, Java, JavaScript, and more.
Speak Your Language: Add your own industry terms so it gets you perfectly.
Custom Shortcuts: Create voice commands for anything you do a lot.

Example of Python Code Dictation:

Python

# Voice command: "define function calculate area, parameters width and height, return width times height."
def calculate_area(width, height):
    return width * height

Right now, Super Whisperer is rocking it on macOS. But don’t worry, Windows users the native version is coming soon, you can sign for the beta here: https://superwhisper.com/windows

Super Whisperer is more than just speech-to-text; it’s a whole new way to work. Now I am trying to combine Super Whisper with Cursor to talk directly with different LLMs, I will keep you posted!

How-to install Chrome in Windows with a oneline Powershell

If you face the situation where you need a browser in a Windows system and you don’t have any or the only browser is Internet Explorer.

You can try this one-line Powershell command:

$LocalTempDir = $env:TEMP; $ChromeInstaller = "ChromeInstaller.exe"; (new-object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('http://dl.google.com/chrome/install/375.126/chrome_installer.exe', "$LocalTempDir\$ChromeInstaller"); & "$LocalTempDir\$ChromeInstaller" /silent /install; $Process2Monitor = "ChromeInstaller"; Do { $ProcessesFound = Get-Process | ?{$Process2Monitor -contains $_.Name} | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Name; If ($ProcessesFound) { "Still running: $($ProcessesFound -join ', ')" | Write-Host; Start-Sleep -Seconds 2 } else { rm "$LocalTempDir\$ChromeInstaller" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Verbose } } Until (!$ProcessesFound)

A new beginning

Yes, I decide to change the language, now I will start writing in english. Why?
First, I need to improve my writing skills.
Second, I became an immigrant, I left Perú some months ago and now I am living in Canada.

There is a lot of things that I want to write about, for now this is only the beginning.