I think Cmux is the incumbent in the "screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty" - any key differentiators here? https://cmux.com/
Show HN: Boo – Screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty
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Re: Show HN: Boo – Screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty
#12I think Cmux is the incumbent in the "screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty" - any key differentiators here? https://cmux.com/
Cmux is a standalone terminal. Boo is a command-line similar to screen, backed by libghostty for terminal emulation.
Re: Show HN: Boo – Screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fair. Adding a section for this now. screen actually works the same way architecturally: it parses all output through its own built-in terminal emulator and redraws from that state on reattach. But that emulator is decades old and lags far behind what modern programs emit. Whatever it doesn't understand gets dropped or mangled on redraw. boo swaps that layer for libghostty-vt, Ghostty's VT core, so the saved state ma…
can you share more on the tmux model vs boo?
Tmux is n clients to 1 server.
Screen is 1 server to 1 client.
In screen each client session is a fork of the screen server. In tmux there's one server and many client forks iirc.
Re: Show HN: Boo – Screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
can you share more on the tmux model vs boo?
Tmux is n clients to 1 server. Screen is 1 server to 1 client. In screen each client session is a fork of the screen server. In tmux there's one server and many client forks iirc.
this is incorrect. you can have multiple clients using screen -x instead of screen -a
Re: Show HN: Boo – Screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty
#15You've obviously written this because screen wasn't doing the right thing, but your readme only explains that it's a "young project, not a drop-in GNU screen replacement". What are its advantages over screen or tmux?
Fair. Adding a section for this now. screen actually works the same way architecturally: it parses all output through its own built-in terminal emulator and redraws from that state on reattach. But that emulator is decades old and lags far behind what modern programs emit. Whatever it doesn't understand gets dropped or mangled on redraw. boo swaps that layer for libghostty-vt, Ghostty's VT core, so the saved state ma…
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Re: Show HN: Boo – Screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty
#16Really dig the minimal approach here. Swapping the backend to libghostty is exactly the kind of clean architecture we need. Going to test drive this today.
Re: Show HN: Boo – Screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
can you share more on the tmux model vs boo?
I want boo to be a screen replacement, not a tmux replacement. tmux gives you a whole workspace: layout, scrollback, copy mode, a status bar. screen's appeal was that it did almost none of that: sessions, a prefix key, done. boo keeps that model and swaps the emulation for libghostty so reattach actually redraws correctly. They also compose: a boo session is just a PTY running a program, so you can run tmux inside on…
Can you please not post AI-generated or AI-edited comments to HN? It's not allowed here - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079.
Of course, it's impossible to know for sure what was LLM processed or not, but some of your posts (like this one) are getting classified that way.
Re: Show HN: Boo – Screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tmux is n clients to 1 server. Screen is 1 server to 1 client. In screen each client session is a fork of the screen server. In tmux there's one server and many client forks iirc.
this is incorrect. you can have multiple clients using screen -x instead of screen -a
I didn't say you couldn't have multiple clients, I said clients and servers are the same process forked. Or did someone add distinct client/server support to screen finally? I know theres a lot of stuff bolted onto screen over the years but I wasn't aware they dropped forked servers for the tmux model...
Re: Show HN: Boo – Screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty
#19Been using zmx for a few months and love it: https://github.com/neurosnap/zmx/
Very similar, based on libghostty
Re: Show HN: Boo – Screen-style terminal multiplexer built on libghostty
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want boo to be a screen replacement, not a tmux replacement. tmux gives you a whole workspace: layout, scrollback, copy mode, a status bar. screen's appeal was that it did almost none of that: sessions, a prefix key, done. boo keeps that model and swaps the emulation for libghostty so reattach actually redraws correctly. They also compose: a boo session is just a PTY running a program, so you can run tmux inside on…
Can you please not post AI-generated or AI-edited comments to HN? It's not allowed here - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47340079 . Of course, it's impossible to know for sure what was LLM processed or not, but some of your posts (like this one) are getting classified that way.
Apologies, half of this indeed was. As I was iterating on the README this seemed apt, but I will refrain!