https://github.com/eylles/systemact/releases/tag/0.2.0

Both the Mate terminal and LXterminal support mouse-wheel scrolling.

Thanks, greenjeans. What you quoted was possible alternatives for others who want to use a mouse. Gave lxterminal a spin anyway and it reminded me of why I use the Up/Dn arrows and PgUp/PgDn to scroll. Using the mouse means having to move my right hand back and forth between the mouse and the keyboard (aptitude, man pages, etc). I find it easier to just keep both hands on the keyboard.

About lxterminal: on this OS, the mouse defaults to skipping two lines instead of scrolling one line at a time. Wasn't useful in aptitude. Didn't see a scroll setting in the GUI prefs and didn't look further, just deleted it. Appreciate the thought.

I've read that configuring tmux or xbindkeys can enable mouse wheel scrolling in xterm but haven't tried either. Also read gnome-terminal has built-in mouse wheel scrolling but the less gnome the better.

Both the Mate terminal and LXterminal support mouse-wheel scrolling. They both show scrollbars but they don't work for some reason, but mouse-scrolling works great.

@EDX-0, tried xresources a while back and for me, it was easier to tweak cmds in the fluxbox menu. Eg: got another xterm in the menu for aptitude, man pages, lsmod, etc. I added a geometry flag to the above posted menu entry so xterm opens to the screen height.

I've read that configuring tmux or xbindkeys can enable mouse wheel scrolling in xterm but haven't tried either. Also read gnome-terminal has built-in mouse wheel scrolling but the less gnome the better. How xterm is configured here works for me.

     │ ! keybind overrides
     │ UXTerm*VT100.Translations: #override \
     │     Prior <KeyPress>:scroll-back(1,halfpage) \n\
     │     Next <KeyPress>:scroll-forw(1,halfpage) \n\
     │     Shift <KeyPress> Insert: insert-selection(CLIPBOARD) \
     │     Ctrl Shift <Key>V:    insert-selection(CLIPBOARD) \
     │     Ctrl Shift <Key>C:    copy-selection(CLIPBOARD) \

which would work and make the xterm buffer scroll up and down with just the next and prior key, but that is going to cause problems with the tui programs like vim that map functions to the next and prior keys, say in vim instead of scrolling in the vim buffer you'll scroll the xterm buffer which will also show terminal history... and that is without mentioning that you have to unmap the default xterm keybinds that add the half page scroll function cuz otherwise you just duplicated the same function without a keychord for a worse user experience...

    ! xterm default keybinds, see full list with man xterm
        Shift <KeyPress> Prior:scroll-back(1,halfpage) \n\
        Shift <KeyPress> Next:scroll-forw(1,halfpage) \n\

i got this file structure for my x11 related configs

  [$HOME/.config/x11/]
 ├──  dynamset*
 ├──  xinitrc*
 ├──  xprofile*
 ├──  xresources
 └──  Xresources.d/
    ├──  colors
    ├──  nsxiv
    ├──  nsxiv-colors
    └──  xterm

the file .Xdefaults is just a symlink to the xresources file inside .config/x11

[ ed  Pro  ~ ] namei  .Xdefaults
f: .Xdefaults
 l .Xdefaults -> .config/x11/xresources

with these contents:

 
  File │  .Xdefaults
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
     1 │ !*dpmsEnabled:         False
     2 │ Xcursor.theme: breeze-pywal
     3 │ Xft.antialias: 1
     4 │ !Xft.dpi:      96.1025390625
     5 │ Xft.dpi:  86
     6 │ Xft.hinting:   1
     7 │ Xft.hintstyle: hintslight
     8 │ Xft.lcdfilter: lcddefault
     9 │ Xft.rgba:      rgb
    10 │
    11 │ #include "Xresources.d/xterm"
    12 │ #include "Xresources.d/colors"
    13 │ #include "Xresources.d/nsxiv"
    14 │ #include "Xresources.d/nsxiv-colors" 

that is because my color definitions are generated by a script

my actual xterm config is this:

 
  File │  .config/x11/Xresources.d/xterm  
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
     1 │ ! text font
     2 │ UXTerm*faceName: BlexMono Nerd Font Mono:size=9
     3 │ UXTerm.vt100.scaleHeight: 1.0
     4 │ ! Unreadable
     5 │ UXTerm*faceSize1: 3
     6 │ ! Tiny:
     7 │ UXTerm*faceSize2: 6
     8 │ ! Small:
     9 │ UXTerm*faceSize3: 10
    10 │ ! Medium:
    11 │ UXTerm*faceSize4: 12
    12 │ ! Large:
    13 │ UXTerm*faceSize5: 15
    14 │ ! Huge:
    15 │ UXTerm*faceSize6: 18
    16 │ ! Enormous:
    17 │ UXTerm*faceSize7: 24
    18 │ ! do not compare bold to normal font
    19 │ UXTerm*freeBoldBox: true
    20 │ ! set term name
    21 │ UXTerm.termName:xterm-256color
    22 │ ! set saved lines
    23 │ UXTerm*saveLines: 999999
    24 │ ! double-click to select whole URLs :D
    25 │ UXTerm*charClass: 33:48,36-47:48,58-59:48,61:48,63-64:48,95:48,126:48
    26 │ ! Allow sixel graphics. (Try: "convert -colors 16 foo.jpg sixel:-").
    27 │ UXTerm*decTerminalID : vt340
    28 │ UXTerm*eightBitInput: false
    29 │ UXTerm.vt100.internalBorder: 2
    30 │ UXTerm*jumpScroll:      true
    31 │ UXTerm*multiScroll:     true
    32 │ UXTerm*alternateScroll: true
    33 │ ! ops
    34 │ UXTerm*.vt100.allowTitleOps: true
    35 │ UXTerm*.vt100.allowFontOpts: true
    36 │ UXTerm*.vt100.allowWindowOps: true
    37 │ ! cursor
    38 │ UXTerm*selectToClipboard: true
    39 │ ! select without mouse
    40 │ UXTerm*printerCommand: sh -c 'xterm-copyout <&3' 3<&0
    41 │ ! print with ansi colors
    42 │ UXTerm*printAttributes: 2
    43 │ ! keybind overrides
    44 │ UXTerm*VT100.Translations: #override \
    45 │     Ctrl <Key>slash: print-everything() \
    46 │     Ctrl <Key> -: smaller-vt-font() \
    47 │     Ctrl <Key> +: larger-vt-font() \
    48 │     Ctrl <Key> 0: set-vt-font(d) \
    49 │     Shift Ctrl <Key>T: spawn-new-terminal() \
    50 │     <BtnUp>:select-end(SELECT, CUT_BUFFER0, PRIMARY) \
    51 │     Ctrl Shift <Key>H: set-altscreen(toggle) \
    52 │     Shift <KeyPress> Home : scroll-to(begin) \
    53 │     Shift <KeyPress> End  : scroll-to(end) \
    54 │     Shift <KeyPress> Insert: insert-selection(CLIPBOARD) \
    55 │     Ctrl Shift <Key>V:    insert-selection(CLIPBOARD) \
    56 │     Ctrl Shift <Key>C:    copy-selection(CLIPBOARD) \

yes, i do use uxterm rather than xterm, tho that is because the command i actually use to start a terminal is x-terminal-emulator, which is symlinked to the xterm lxterm (locale xterm) which detects the locale charmap, in my case UTF-8, and calls the uxterm wrapper script

copy/paste:
highlight text to copy, middle-click to paste in terminal/gui editor

without scrollbar:
Hold Shift + Tap PgUp/PgDn to scroll up/down one page

Temporary options in xterm window:
Main: hold Ctrl + hold left-click and scroll to select
VT: hold Ctrl + hold middle-click and scroll to select
Fonts: hold Ctrl + hold right-click and scroll to select

Permanent option for scrollbar
Open /etc/X11/app-defaults/XTerm as root, add line at bottom:
*scrollBar: true

In my fluxbox menu:
[exec] (Terminal) {xterm -bg black -fg green -fa 'Monospace' -fs 14} <> 
Note: adding -sb to the above line will open xterm with a scrollbar

as far as the terminal goes, that is up to preference for the user, personally i like ancient old xterm against all nice modern terminals that sport the bells and whistles out front, xterm does have the option to enable scrollbar but i do not use that one, however being able to copy text with the keyboard alone is a nice thing to have, for which i cobbled this script to extend the functionality of xterm so that i can get a new xterm (xterm with xterm) running an fzf instance that shows a dump of the whole xterm history buffer, thanks to fzf the lines are searchable by content and multiple lines can be selected, upon pressing enter every selected line is copied into the clipboard, so eh it may not be the fancier thing but the functionality is nice https://github.com/eylles/xterm-copyout

It would have to have copy paste and show scrollbar as requirements. All terminals that do this require vte3 or vte2.

https://github.com/eylles/xterm-nvim

will try to create a .deb package for it tho.

https://github.com/eylles/zram-service

now i just have to see if i can get it packaged on debian...

https://github.com/eylles/systemact