5 ms·

I found this quite useful. I have been using screen for a while but my friends use tmux. They love it and couldn't be bothered to switch to screen and me vice v

I found this quite useful. I have been using screen for a while but my friends use tmux. They love it and couldn't be bothered to switch to screen and me vice versa. Based on the post I don't seen any strong reason for either to switch unless there are other reasons not mentioned in the comparison.

colordrops 9y ago
Change the tmux keybinding from ctrl-b to ctrl-a and it will feel mostly like screen, but you will get all the extra tmux functionality.
- Finnucane 9y ago
  The article didn't seem to address customization. Every tmux tutorial I've seen recommends changing the keybindings for the prefix, splitting screens, and other frequently-used features. I haven't used screen, so I don't know how hard it is to do that with it. tmux works well enough for my needs.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  > but you will get all the extra tmux functionality That is what exactly? I stopped using screen a few months ago, tmux offers a set of default key bindings that are adjusted to modern software, a new biding for copy and paste (so you can control what machine gets the command), and... I still didn't find anything more that is relevant. If he is used to screen, the key bindings will be more a problem than a solution¹, and the copy and paste thing is very niche. I don't think one has any good reason to migrate from one to the other. I did it to get to know tmux better, and really, that's exactly as much as I got. 1 - Unless you need to keep setting the bindings again and again.
  - the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
    The biggest feature of tmux is that it's natively integrated into iterm2. So I get scrolling and splitting like for a normal local session.
    - patrec 9y ago
      Yes, I'd really love to have a linux version of that. The biggest advantage of screen to me is that you can more easily fix the dumb prefix key (e.g. screen -e^z^z to use ^Z). This is handy for remote servers wherem you don't have your config files etc.
  - mitchty 9y ago
    > That is what exactly? Vertical split panes was the biggest reason, but for myself, the end comes down to a config file I can actually read and unlike screen, tends to not have things like this in the man page: > Attach here and now. Whatever that means, just do it.
    - dlgeek 9y ago
      Screen has supported vertical split panes for a long time now.
      - mitchty 9y ago
        Only for 4 ish years after the 4.0 release IIRC ~2013. Before that there was a patch floating around to do it: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26685/how-to-split-window-vertically-in-gnu-screen https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26685/how-to-split-... Thats the main reason myself and a number of people I know ditched screen around that time. But I'd hardly call 4 years a long time.
        awirth 9y ago
        For those confused, the linked patch page[1] has says that the patch got integrated into Debian (and Ubuntu) from 4.0.3-10, which means it would have been available since Lenny (2009). [1]: http://fungi.yuggoth.org/vsp4s/ http://fungi.yuggoth.org/vsp4s/
    - zeptomu 9y ago
      > Vertical split panes was the biggest reason, [...] Besides the fact, that screen can also do that, I think this should be implemented at the Window Management Layer anyway - tiling WMs do that. This is actually the main reason, why I do not use tmux or screen at the moment. I used to work with screen, because I liked the terminal splitting, but since using a tiling WM, I get that for free. However I have to admit, that I sometimes miss session management.
      - mitchty 9y ago
  - tanderson92 9y ago
    > That is what exactly? For me, it is that I have a package like https://github.com/christoomey/vim-tmux-navigator https://github.com/christoomey/vim-tmux-navigator I can seamlessly move across splits in either vim or tmux without worrying which program started the splits.
Graziano_M 9y ago
Pane zoom is reason enough for me.

colordrops 9y ago

Change the tmux keybinding from ctrl-b to ctrl-a and it will feel mostly like screen, but you will get all the extra tmux functionality.

Finnucane 9y ago
The article didn't seem to address customization. Every tmux tutorial I've seen recommends changing the keybindings for the prefix, splitting screens, and other frequently-used features. I haven't used screen, so I don't know how hard it is to do that with it. tmux works well enough for my needs.
marcosdumay 9y ago
> but you will get all the extra tmux functionality That is what exactly? I stopped using screen a few months ago, tmux offers a set of default key bindings that are adjusted to modern software, a new biding for copy and paste (so you can control what machine gets the command), and... I still didn't find anything more that is relevant. If he is used to screen, the key bindings will be more a problem than a solution¹, and the copy and paste thing is very niche. I don't think one has any good reason to migrate from one to the other. I did it to get to know tmux better, and really, that's exactly as much as I got. 1 - Unless you need to keep setting the bindings again and again.
- the_mitsuhiko 9y ago
  The biggest feature of tmux is that it's natively integrated into iterm2. So I get scrolling and splitting like for a normal local session.
  - patrec 9y ago
    Yes, I'd really love to have a linux version of that. The biggest advantage of screen to me is that you can more easily fix the dumb prefix key (e.g. screen -e^z^z to use ^Z). This is handy for remote servers wherem you don't have your config files etc.
- mitchty 9y ago
  > That is what exactly? Vertical split panes was the biggest reason, but for myself, the end comes down to a config file I can actually read and unlike screen, tends to not have things like this in the man page: > Attach here and now. Whatever that means, just do it.
  - dlgeek 9y ago
    Screen has supported vertical split panes for a long time now.
    - mitchty 9y ago
      Only for 4 ish years after the 4.0 release IIRC ~2013. Before that there was a patch floating around to do it: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26685/how-to-split-window-vertically-in-gnu-screen https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/26685/how-to-split-... Thats the main reason myself and a number of people I know ditched screen around that time. But I'd hardly call 4 years a long time.
      - awirth 9y ago
        For those confused, the linked patch page[1] has says that the patch got integrated into Debian (and Ubuntu) from 4.0.3-10, which means it would have been available since Lenny (2009). [1]: http://fungi.yuggoth.org/vsp4s/ http://fungi.yuggoth.org/vsp4s/
  - zeptomu 9y ago
    > Vertical split panes was the biggest reason, [...] Besides the fact, that screen can also do that, I think this should be implemented at the Window Management Layer anyway - tiling WMs do that. This is actually the main reason, why I do not use tmux or screen at the moment. I used to work with screen, because I liked the terminal splitting, but since using a tiling WM, I get that for free. However I have to admit, that I sometimes miss session management.
    - mitchty 9y ago
- tanderson92 9y ago
  > That is what exactly? For me, it is that I have a package like https://github.com/christoomey/vim-tmux-navigator https://github.com/christoomey/vim-tmux-navigator I can seamlessly move across splits in either vim or tmux without worrying which program started the splits.

Graziano_M 9y ago

Pane zoom is reason enough for me.