[Revell]

Why are you being forced to use OSX? Why not just install your distro of choice on it?

Other than that, use iTerm2[0], Homebrew[1] and Cask[2], this'll kickstart your CLI env in the right direction.

  [0] http://iterm2.com/  
  [1] http://brew.sh/  
  [2] http://caskroom.io/

[frou_dh]

I never understand the instant dismissal of the stock Terminal.app

Yes it's not the most featureful terminal emulator in existence but it's well put together and works just fine.

[atonse]

For me, the main reason I moved to iTerm2 was because terminal only had support for 16 colors (I think ... it was 4-5 years ago). So I just use iTerm now out of habit. I didn't have any other issues with Terminal.app.

And I suspect most others have similar reasons.

[falcolas]

I hate on Terminal.app because it's less configurable, has some really questionable key defaults (such as subsuming all of the home/end/insert keys for the window, not the apps in the terminal), lacks the ability to do tmux-esque split panes, and it lacks the ability to change mouse bindings.

It's an OK default, but for real work it drives me batty to keep hitting the limitations it imposes. Sure, I could rebind everything and move to tmux in the terminal itself, but why, when iTerm2 is free and still frequently updated?

The tmux integration offered by iTerm2 is also pretty handy if you spend any amount of time on remote servers.

[crystalclaw]

I use the TotalTerminal addon for the stock terminal for a slide-out-from-the-side terminal that I can leave up and not have get in the way. It's really handy.

[Revell]

I switched to Iterm2 a couple of years back, my main reason back then was that Terminal.app was missing a lot of features which I had gotten used to when using Linux (Terminator it was, I believe).

[nailer]

Terminal displays [x] for some characters in my shell prompt for some reason. It also misses iTerms Fn left and Fn right start/end of line shortcuts.

[PeterWhittaker]

+1 on brew and cask. Also, xcode, Tunnelblick, git, etc.

Be sure to change your default path to put /usr/local/bin first, so that all of the brewy and other goodness you install is actually picked up - and, if you install a more up to date bash, be sure to change your shell: System Preferences, Users and Groups, "two-finger" or "right click" on your name in the list on the left, advanced options....

I'm happy with the default terminal, works well enough.

EDIT: Not sure whether you will also need to change the default shell used by Terminal: start Terminal, Terminal, Preferences....

[ecaron]

"Forced" might be a strong word, and I'm new to non-startups so I don't know what kind of admin lock down is on the box. So I'm trying to do as I'm told until I have a reason I can't...

[Revell]

In my (albeit somewhat limited) experience with different dev. companies, it's no (big) issue to use the distro that you're most comfortable with. For me this is OSX, but I've also ran Linux (Ubuntu/Mint) in a primarily Windows oriented company. The only "issue" was that I was my own tech-support in the case where something might not work.