It's strongly recommended to install Terminator using your OS's package system rather than using setup.py yourself. You can find instructions for many distributions at: https://gnometerminator.blogspot.com/p/introduction.html If you don't have this option, please make sure you satisfy Terminator's dependencies yourself: * Python 2.5+, 2.6 recommended: Debian/Ubuntu: python FreeBSD: lang/python26 * Python VTE bindings: Debian/Ubuntu: python-vte FreeBSD: x11-toolkits/py-vte If you don't care about native language support or icons, Terminator should run just fine directly from this directory, just: ./terminator --help And go from there. Manpages are available in the 'doc' directory. To install properly, run: ./setup.py install --record=install-files.txt See --help for an overview of the available options; e.g. --prefix to install to a custom base directory, and --without-gettext to avoid installing natural language support files. setup.py supports basic uninstallation provided --record was used for installation as above: ./setup.py uninstall --manifest=install-files.txt Note that uninstall will avoid removing most empty directories so it won't harm e.g. locale or icon directories which only contain Terminator data. It also won't rebuild the icon cache, so you may wish to: gtk-update-icon-cache -q -f ${PREFIX}/share/icons/hicolor Where ${PREFIX} is the base install directory; e.g. /usr/local.