TL;DR: Cursor IDE on Linux is intercepting terminal commands, causing warnings, interruptions, and environment pollution.
Cursor IDE Terminal Interference
I’m running into a frustrating issue with Cursor on Linux (Zorin OS/Ubuntu)
Cursor hijacks my terminal commands causing:
- Random command interruptions with “Command was interrupted” messages
- Electron/Chromium warnings on Python commands:
Warning: 'c' is not in the list of known options, but still passed to Electron/Chromium.
- Duplicated/corrupted command output
- Dependency parsing errors:
WARNING: Error parsing dependencies of python-apt: Invalid version: '2.4.0-ubuntu4-zorin1'
- Environment pollution with 13+ cursor-related variables and AppImage mount paths
Technical Details
Found that Cursor was:
- Creating symlink: /usr/local/bin/code → /opt/cursor.appimage
- Injecting /tmp/.mount_cursor* paths into PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH
- Setting variables like CURSOR_TRACE_ID, APPDIR, VSCODE_GIT_ASKPASS_*, etc.
- Running terminal within Electron/Chromium process context
What I’ve Tried
- Removed /usr/local/bin/code symlink
- Cleaned PATH of cursor mount directories
- Created clean environment scripts with env -i
- Still getting interference - Cursor intercepts at process level, not just environment
Environment
- Linux 6.8.0-60-generic (Zorin OS/Ubuntu), zsh, Cursor AppImage
- Affects Django/Python development, pip installs, manage.py commands
Current workaround: separate system terminal, but defeats integrated terminal purpose.