This is a bit of a work around, but it is the best way I've found.
- Open Terminator
- Type
terminator &
which runs terminator as a background process - Type
Ctrl+C
in your original terminator instance to get your command line back
This should result in 2 functioning independent terminator windows. For the split screen layout on start, this answer has a good explanation. Save a layout and then use terminator -l yourLayout &
for Step 2 here. It may also be useful to note that Ctrl+L
will clear the screen, should you desire a clean screen on your original terminator instance.