When you’re pressing Escape to leave insert mode in the terminal, it will by default take a second or another keystroke to leave insert mode completely and update the statusline. If you find this annoying, you can add the following snippet to your vimrc to escape insert mode immediately:
if ! has('gui_running')
set ttimeoutlen=10
augroup FastEscape
autocmd!
au InsertEnter * set timeoutlen=0
au InsertLeave * set timeoutlen=1000
augroup END
endif
You may find the following vim settings useful when using the Powerline statusline:
set laststatus=2 " Always display the statusline in all windows
set noshowmode " Hide the default mode text (e.g. -- INSERT -- below the statusline)
The Terminus fonts does not have the powerline glyths and unless someone submits a patch to the font author, it is unlikely to happen. However, Andre Klärner came up with this work around: In your ~/.Xdefault file add the following:
urxvt*font: xft:Terminus:pixelsize=12,xft:Inconsolata\ for\ Powerline:pixelsize=12
This will allow urxvt to fallback onto the Inconsolata fonts in case it does not find the right glyths within the terminus font.