Common settings to prevent digital eye-straining:

"A clearly legible font of at least size 12 preferably in a dark color over light background should be chosen.". gnome-terminal is using font-size 12 by default. Also, this is popular on wide monitors due to their generous space.
Bright background color.

Expected behaviour

gnome-terminal (reference)

gnome-terminal does not have to be closed, and then started again for the settings to be used. gnome-terminal loads the settings directly. Example for both gsettings, or dconf:

Before:

After:

profile_key=$(gsettings get org.gnome.Terminal.ProfilesList default | sed -e "s/'//g" | tr -d "\n")
gsettings set org.gnome.Terminal.Legacy.Profile:/org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:$profile_key/ use-theme-colors true

# Same result with dconf
dconf write /org/gnome/terminal/legacy/profiles:/:$profile_key/use-theme-colors true

mate-terminal expected behaviour

Settings cannot be reloaded from the interactive shell

In Trisquel 11, these settings keep the default font and increase its size from 10 to 12, and disable the default colors and switch to black to light yellow:

# Font: Increase font size to prevent eye straining
gsettings set org.mate.terminal.profile:/org/mate/terminal/profiles/default/ use-system-font true
gsettings set org.mate.terminal.profile:/org/mate/terminal/profiles/default/ font 'Monospace Regular 12'

# Background color: Use light-yellow background which is ideal to prevent eye straining
gsettings set org.mate.terminal.profile:/org/mate/terminal/profiles/default/ use-theme-colors false

The font-size and the background color is manipulated on the screenshot to show the expected behaviour (for example, the --reload option does not exist but is a proposed first solution if it's very difficult to make the settings take effect immediately like in gnome-terminal):

Themes can be reloaded from the interactive shell

Default mate-terminal in Ubuntu MATE 22.04

Screenshot at 2023-07-27 21-37-59

Themes can be loaded directly from the interactive shell, so mate-terminal does not have to be restarted:

dconf write /org/mate/desktop/interface/gtk-theme "'Yaru-MATE-dark'"
dconf write /org/mate/desktop/interface/gtk-color-scheme "'tooltip_fg_color:#f7f7f7\ntooltip_bg_color:#353535'"
dconf write /org/mate/marco/general/theme "'Yaru-dark'"
dconf write /org/mate/pluma/color-scheme "'Yaru-dark'"
dconf write /org/mate/desktop/interface/icon-theme "'Yaru-MATE-dark'"
dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/interface/color-scheme "'prefer-dark'"
dconf write /net/launchpad/plank/docks/dock1/theme "'Yaru-dark'"

Screenshot at 2023-07-27 21-38-25

Actual behaviour

The GUI update the settings interactively

Edit -> Profile Preferences

Font configuration: General [tab] -> Deselect "Use the system fixed with font". Increase the font size from 10 to 12 (see screenshot)
Background color: Color [tab] -> "Use colors from system theme" (uncheck) (see screenshot)

Example in Trisquel 11:

The interactive shell does not update the settings interactively

The corresponding commands for the GUI settings from the above section:

# Font: Increase font size to prevent eye straining
gsettings set org.mate.terminal.profile:/org/mate/terminal/profiles/default/ use-system-font true
gsettings set org.mate.terminal.profile:/org/mate/terminal/profiles/default/ font 'Monospace Regular 12'

# Background color: Use light-yellow background which is ideal to prevent eye straining
gsettings set org.mate.terminal.profile:/org/mate/terminal/profiles/default/ use-theme-colors false

However, the problem is that the settings are not applied immediately.

Example in Trisquel 11:

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

Steps added above to avoid sectional confusion, as examples to both the GUI and the interactive shell, are provided above.

MATE general version

1.26.0

Package version