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screen is one of those things that's been on my todo list for way too long, along with its alternatives(?), tmux and byobu. Anyone that uses/used all three and

screen is one of those things that's been on my todo list for way too long, along with its alternatives(?), tmux and byobu. Anyone that uses/used all three and can offer a comparison?

ez77 15y ago
Consider the more lightweight dtach and dvtm. Following a well-known tradition, they each do one thing only, and do it well ;-).
- qwertyboy 15y ago
  dtach is very tempting. Is there a nice way to keep all the scrollback history?
thristian 15y ago
byobu is something like a theme or packaged config for screen, so it doesn't really need to be treated separately. The biggest difference between tmux and screen is that tmux is a lot more flexible with regard to laying out groups of sub-terminals within the main terminal. screen is mostly limited to one-at-a-time, horizontal splitting or (in very recent versions) vertical splitting, while tmux lets you go nuts: http://tmux.sourceforge.net/tmux3.png http://tmux.sourceforge.net/tmux3.png Also, GNU screen is very old and stable, while tmux is (so far) still new and flexible. For example, tmux very quickly added support for handling Unicode characters beyond U+FFFF, a feat that (so far as I know) screen still can't manage. That's only one example, but I'm sure there'll be more as time goes on. EDIT: One other thing that tmux does that makes it better than screen: when I start up a tmux session from within an X11 session, tmux clears the $DISPLAY variable so that processes running inside tmux don't try to connect to the original X server - which may very well have gone away at that point. It's a small thing, but incredibly annoying when it happens.
revscat 15y ago
I have used screen for many years and decided to finally give tmux a try about 2 months ago. I really enjoy it. It took some adjusting, but overall I like it better. Things like this are largely due to personal preferences, though. All I can tell you is that I am happier with tmux than I was with screen. It is more modern, and the split screening capabilities are better.
Pistos2 15y ago
I switched from screen to tmux a while back. The key thing for me is that configuration and manipulations/operations in general are more user-friendly. Otherwise, in terms of the basic use cases, they are essentially the same.
mcantor 15y ago
I switched from screen to tmux about three months ago. It's easier to configure, does vertical splits, and is under more active development (apparently).

screen is one of those things that's been on my todo list for way too long, along with its alternatives(?), tmux and byobu. Anyone that uses/used all three and can offer a comparison?

ez77 15y ago

Consider the more lightweight dtach and dvtm. Following a well-known tradition, they each do one thing only, and do it well ;-).

qwertyboy 15y ago
dtach is very tempting. Is there a nice way to keep all the scrollback history?

thristian 15y ago

byobu is something like a theme or packaged config for screen, so it doesn't really need to be treated separately. The biggest difference between tmux and screen is that tmux is a lot more flexible with regard to laying out groups of sub-terminals within the main terminal. screen is mostly limited to one-at-a-time, horizontal splitting or (in very recent versions) vertical splitting, while tmux lets you go nuts: http://tmux.sourceforge.net/tmux3.png http://tmux.sourceforge.net/tmux3.png Also, GNU screen is very old and stable, while tmux is (so far) still new and flexible. For example, tmux very quickly added support for handling Unicode characters beyond U+FFFF, a feat that (so far as I know) screen still can't manage. That's only one example, but I'm sure there'll be more as time goes on. EDIT: One other thing that tmux does that makes it better than screen: when I start up a tmux session from within an X11 session, tmux clears the $DISPLAY variable so that processes running inside tmux don't try to connect to the original X server - which may very well have gone away at that point. It's a small thing, but incredibly annoying when it happens.

revscat 15y ago

I have used screen for many years and decided to finally give tmux a try about 2 months ago. I really enjoy it. It took some adjusting, but overall I like it better. Things like this are largely due to personal preferences, though. All I can tell you is that I am happier with tmux than I was with screen. It is more modern, and the split screening capabilities are better.

Pistos2 15y ago

I switched from screen to tmux a while back. The key thing for me is that configuration and manipulations/operations in general are more user-friendly. Otherwise, in terms of the basic use cases, they are essentially the same.

mcantor 15y ago

I switched from screen to tmux about three months ago. It's easier to configure, does vertical splits, and is under more active development (apparently).