QTerm is a BBS (Bulletin Board System) client program. It runs on GNU/Linux, OS X and Windows thanks to the cross-platform framework Qt.

Back in year 2000, as a desktop alternative, Linux started to get popular among enthusiasts. People need the software they used to have on Windows. A BBS client was one of those that university students wanted most.

In Nov.2 2000, kafa and smartfish released miniTerm at smth (now newsmth) BBS. It was an absolutly exciting experience to view BBS from its mini window.

In 2001, having different vision from being "mini", QTerm forked the code to become a fully functional BBS client such as S-Term and CTerm.

The following dependencies must be met,

• A basic development environment

  • On Debian, the package is :

    sudo aptitude install build-essentials

  • On Fedora, the package is :

    sudo dnf install @"C Development Tools and Libraries"

• Qt 4.6+ or Qt 5.3+

  • On Debian, the packages are :

    sudo aptitude install qt5-defaults qttools5-dev qttools5-dev-tools qtscript5-dev qtmultimedia5-dev

  • On Fedora, the packages are :

    sudo dnf install qt5-devel

  • The installer from Qt is simple for macOS and Windows.
• CMake 2.8.11+
  • On Linux and macOS, the package is most probably cmake.
• OpenSSL 1.0+ (Optional)
  • On Debian, the package is libssl-dev.
  • On Fedora, the package is openssl-devel.
  • On macOS, install openssl via MacPorts or HomeBrew
  • On Windows, get the installer from https://slproweb.com/products/Win32OpenSSL.html
• DBus (Optional)
• Phonon (Optional)
• KWallet (Optional)

To build on Linux or macOS, :

# Create the build directory side by side to qterm source directory
mkdir -p qterm-build && cd qterm-build
# Using Qt4
cmake ../qterm
# Using Qt5
cmake ../qterm -DQT5=YES
# If your Qt is under non-standard location, specify the qmake program
cmake ../qterm -DQT_QMAKE_EXECUTABLE=<path of qmake program>
# Build
make
# Optionally create a binary package
make package

To build on Windows, open the Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt, :

# Set PATH to include Qt binary directory
set PATH=C:\Qt\5.7\msvc2015\bin;%PATH%
# Create the build directory side by side to qterm source directory
mdkir qterm-build
# Using Qt4
cmake ..\qterm -G "NMake Makefiles"
# Using Qt5
cmake ..\qterm -DQT5=YES -G "NMake Makefiles"
# Build
nmake
# Optionally create an installer if NSIS is installed
nmake package

Repository is at https://github.com/qterm/qterm

QTerm is released under GNU General Public License (refer to COPYRIGHT).

Kudos to our users for their bug reports and suggestions.