VSCode on Linux Mint, integrated terminal not able to type anything

Question

Hi I'm running Linux Mint 19 and I have just installed vscode using the snapd package manager. I've not used vscode on linux before as my usual editor is emacs. However, on a fresh new install of vscode, the integrated terminal does not work, there is just a non blinking cursor in the top left of the screen, but no prompt and no keyboard strokes are registering. This appears to be a common problem as there are a lot of posts about it if googled, but they are all for Windows versions and none of the solutions that I'm able to try do anything. I've tried to open a new terminal window, but the same thing happens I just get two terminal windows that I now cannot use. I've also tried checking the box that says Code-runner: Run In Terminal, but that does nothing either. What can I do to get this to work please, I looks to me like it is just not connected to either a bash or Zsh(which I normally use). Any help on this would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Instead of starting vscode with its default shell script (usually located on /usr/share/code/bin/code), the integrated terminal only works for me when starting it directly from the compiled binary (typically found on /usr/share/code/code, which is the same as the launcher created by the installer:

/usr/share/code/code --no-sandbox --unity-launch %F

While I searched for a solution in the past I've also noticed that lots of folks solved similar problems just by adding --disable-gpu flag, so might be worth checking out as well.