4 ms·

I've used screen for years and years and because of the noise around tmux, I decided to try to give it a spin. In the end (rather quickly actually) I went back

I've used screen for years and years and because of the noise around tmux, I decided to try to give it a spin. In the end (rather quickly actually) I went back to screen. It's simple. It works. It's reliable, mature and stable. It has the "proper" keybindings which has been around for decades for this kind of software. Whatever tmux was supposed to provide of additional value I could not find. Edit: I see that this article (from 2010) says screen doesn't have a menu to select buffers. That's factually incorrect. That feature must have been there already before tmux was started?

ris 10y ago
Yes, I've always found tmux to be a bit weird, especially its hijacking of mouse events which really throws me.
dozzie 10y ago
Add `dvtm' inside `screen' session to your toolbelt. Splits your terminal into few other terminals you can arrange in several ways.
- oftenwrong 10y ago
  There is another tool by the author of dvtm called abduco which provides session management features http://www.brain-dump.org/projects/abduco/ http://www.brain-dump.org/projects/abduco/
- GrinningFool 10y ago
  Is there additional functionality over native screen (or tmux) capabilities that appear to do the same thing?
  - dozzie 10y ago
    I don't know, I've never bothered to read tmux' docs. As I hear from colleagues, there's none, apart from more friendly learning curve (dvtm doesn't try to handle sessions).
    - dozzie 10y ago
      Correction: screen is terrible on the ground of splitting terminal in several pieces. dvtm fills this space elegantly.
jerguismi 10y ago
I also use screen, but once when I wanted to automate something I found out that tmux was easier to script.
MustardTiger 10y ago
All you are really saying is "I am used to screen's behavior and keybindings". That is fine, but it doesn't delete the huge amount of useful functionality in tmux that is not in screen. Nor does it make screen "simple" or "mature". Screen is old, not mature. It is fragile and brittle and clunky and inconsistent. Which is not surprising given its age and lack of active maintainers.
rwmj 10y ago
An annoying thing about screen is the default settings are pretty terrible. I use the following $HOME/.screenrc on all my machines which improves things a bit: # Set escape character to Shift-Ctrl-^ and meta character to ^ escape ^^^ # Get rid of stupid visual bell wait. vbellwait 0 vbell_msg ^G bell_msg ^G # Status line. hardstatus on hardstatus alwayslastline hardstatus string "%H|%w%=|%d/%m %c"
cm3 10y ago
One problem with tmux is that you have to add extra bindings for each keybinding which you want to use like in screen where you do not have to lift your finger before pressing the last part. So, to get the same usability as in screen, one is forced to add things like these: bind-key C-i last-window bind-key C-n next-window bind-key C-p previous-window bind-key C-c new-window Otherwise, it takes longer to activate (use) the bindings. Before anyone asks, I've added suggested config which should have been a remedy, but none of the following restores screen's quick binding access: unbind C-i set -g prefix C-i bind-key C-i send-prefix
cocotino 10y ago
screen has been far too buggy for me. Especially when my connection dropped and I wanted to reattach to an existing session. Sometimes it just froze there, even by forcing the detach.
sigcode 10y ago
"tmux was supposed to provide [of] additional value" Are you sure? Could it be the author just wanted a BSD licensed screen alternative or some other reason(s)? "The keybindings are different" argument seems quite silly since you can easily change them to whatever you want. It's like when people say they will not use Lua because indices start at 1 instead of 0. tmux may be thought of as an alternative, not a replacement. Whether that's correct is an open question. Example: If I start a build world in a screen window, then detach and later I want to get a "screen shot" or "screen grab" of the output without re-attaching, how do I do that? Also, tmux's "clipboard buffer(s)", e.g., tmux loadb, tmux lsb, etc., seems a little more versatile than screen, but I'm open to suggestions from screen users how to do these things in screen. Here's what I use in tmux for the Example: cat tt case $1 in ""|-b|-E|-S|-t) tmux capturep $@ exec tmux showb $@ ;; *)exit esac
CaptSpify 10y ago
I use tmux constantly. But if you are happy with screen, I don't see any reason to switch. I hate articles that say "you should use $new_tool instead!" when they should be "Here's why I like $new_tool better than $old_tool"
hrez 10y ago
> Whatever tmux was supposed to provide of additional value I could not find. (find-window) is major feature for me (91 windows currently). That and no more "Suddenly the Dungeon collapses!! - You die..." :)

ris 10y ago

Yes, I've always found tmux to be a bit weird, especially its hijacking of mouse events which really throws me.

dozzie 10y ago

Add `dvtm' inside `screen' session to your toolbelt. Splits your terminal into few other terminals you can arrange in several ways.

oftenwrong 10y ago
There is another tool by the author of dvtm called abduco which provides session management features http://www.brain-dump.org/projects/abduco/ http://www.brain-dump.org/projects/abduco/
GrinningFool 10y ago
Is there additional functionality over native screen (or tmux) capabilities that appear to do the same thing?
- dozzie 10y ago
  I don't know, I've never bothered to read tmux' docs. As I hear from colleagues, there's none, apart from more friendly learning curve (dvtm doesn't try to handle sessions).
  - dozzie 10y ago
    Correction: screen is terrible on the ground of splitting terminal in several pieces. dvtm fills this space elegantly.

jerguismi 10y ago

I also use screen, but once when I wanted to automate something I found out that tmux was easier to script.

MustardTiger 10y ago

All you are really saying is "I am used to screen's behavior and keybindings". That is fine, but it doesn't delete the huge amount of useful functionality in tmux that is not in screen. Nor does it make screen "simple" or "mature". Screen is old, not mature. It is fragile and brittle and clunky and inconsistent. Which is not surprising given its age and lack of active maintainers.

rwmj 10y ago

An annoying thing about screen is the default settings are pretty terrible. I use the following $HOME/.screenrc on all my machines which improves things a bit: # Set escape character to Shift-Ctrl-^ and meta character to ^ escape ^^^ # Get rid of stupid visual bell wait. vbellwait 0 vbell_msg ^G bell_msg ^G # Status line. hardstatus on hardstatus alwayslastline hardstatus string "%H|%w%=|%d/%m %c"

cm3 10y ago

One problem with tmux is that you have to add extra bindings for each keybinding which you want to use like in screen where you do not have to lift your finger before pressing the last part. So, to get the same usability as in screen, one is forced to add things like these: bind-key C-i last-window bind-key C-n next-window bind-key C-p previous-window bind-key C-c new-window Otherwise, it takes longer to activate (use) the bindings. Before anyone asks, I've added suggested config which should have been a remedy, but none of the following restores screen's quick binding access: unbind C-i set -g prefix C-i bind-key C-i send-prefix

cocotino 10y ago

screen has been far too buggy for me. Especially when my connection dropped and I wanted to reattach to an existing session. Sometimes it just froze there, even by forcing the detach.

sigcode 10y ago

"tmux was supposed to provide [of] additional value" Are you sure? Could it be the author just wanted a BSD licensed screen alternative or some other reason(s)? "The keybindings are different" argument seems quite silly since you can easily change them to whatever you want. It's like when people say they will not use Lua because indices start at 1 instead of 0. tmux may be thought of as an alternative, not a replacement. Whether that's correct is an open question. Example: If I start a build world in a screen window, then detach and later I want to get a "screen shot" or "screen grab" of the output without re-attaching, how do I do that? Also, tmux's "clipboard buffer(s)", e.g., tmux loadb, tmux lsb, etc., seems a little more versatile than screen, but I'm open to suggestions from screen users how to do these things in screen. Here's what I use in tmux for the Example: cat tt case $1 in ""|-b|-E|-S|-t) tmux capturep $@ exec tmux showb $@ ;; *)exit esac

CaptSpify 10y ago

I use tmux constantly. But if you are happy with screen, I don't see any reason to switch. I hate articles that say "you should use $new_tool instead!" when they should be "Here's why I like $new_tool better than $old_tool"

hrez 10y ago

> Whatever tmux was supposed to provide of additional value I could not find. (find-window) is major feature for me (91 windows currently). That and no more "Suddenly the Dungeon collapses!! - You die..." :)