In Gemini Cli 0.17.1 we have set the default for useAlternateBuffer back to false

[cornmander]

Thank you to everyone who gave us feedback on this feature and helped us identify the rough edges we need to polish before making it the default again. We plan to re-enable it once we support copying on all terminals without requiring Ctrl+S and have improved scroll wheel responsiveness.

When we do re-enable it, we will also include detection logic to ensure it activates only on terminals that handle mouse support robustly. In the meantime, you can manually enable the feature by going to /settings and setting Use Alternate Screen Buffer to true. If you are considering enabling this setting, you can learn more about its benefits here: https://developers.googleblog.com/en/making-the-terminal-beautiful-one-pixel-at-a-time/