diff --git a/client/app/scripts/components/terminal.js b/client/app/scripts/components/terminal.js
index d32b37f32e..a3d7d2747e 100644
--- a/client/app/scripts/components/terminal.js
+++ b/client/app/scripts/components/terminal.js
@@ -146,6 +146,15 @@ class Terminal extends React.Component {
   mountTerminal() {
     Term.applyAddon(fit);
     this.term = new Term({
+      //
+      // Some linux systems fail to render 'monospace' on `<canvas>` correctly:
+      // https://github.com/xtermjs/xterm.js/issues/1170
+      // `theme.fontFamilies.monospace` doesn't provide many options so we add
+      // some here that are very common. The alternative _might_ be to bundle Roboto-Mono
+      //
+      fontFamily: '"Roboto Mono", "Courier New", "Courier", monospace',
+      // `theme.fontSizes.tiny` (`"12px"`) is a string and we need an int here.
+      fontSize: 12,
       convertEol: !this.props.pipe.get('raw'),
       cursorBlink: true,
       scrollback: 10000,