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GNU Screen - A Hacker's Ideal Terminal

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21–30 of 103 posts

Re: GNU Screen - A Hacker's Ideal Terminal

#21
Many thanks for posting this. This is exactly the kind of thing I come to HN to find. I use screen on occasion but never really had it in my mind that I should be using it as a productivity tool.

I have once again found minor enlightenment and am already more productive because of it. Its nice when procrastinating on HN turns into a net win!

Re: GNU Screen - A Hacker's Ideal Terminal

#22

You might want to consider tmux ( http://tmux.sourceforge.net/ ) as an alternative. Its cleaner (and, incidentally, BSD-licensed) codebase means that it's getting features that have been gathering dust on screen's to-do list for ages. Most notably, its dwm/XMonad-style layouts ( http://tmux.sourceforge.net/tmux6.png ) are really nice. AFAICT, screen doesn't even officially have vertically split windows yet, it's stil…

No offense, but how does it's BSD-licensed codebase mean that it 'gets more features'?

Re: GNU Screen - A Hacker's Ideal Terminal

#24

You might want to consider tmux ( http://tmux.sourceforge.net/ ) as an alternative. Its cleaner (and, incidentally, BSD-licensed) codebase means that it's getting features that have been gathering dust on screen's to-do list for ages. Most notably, its dwm/XMonad-style layouts ( http://tmux.sourceforge.net/tmux6.png ) are really nice. AFAICT, screen doesn't even officially have vertically split windows yet, it's stil…

Thanks, I will look at that, looks rad! I just thought the article covered some really key points about multiplexing terminals in general...

Re: GNU Screen - A Hacker's Ideal Terminal

#25
post #6

Screen uses C-a as its "command" character. Unfortunately, C-a means "go to start of line" in emacs and terminals. The solution? In your .screenrc file: escape ^Ww This will default C-w as the command character.

Isn't C-w kill-region in emacs? I recently came up against this problem too, but what else to change it to .. ?

I'd suggest changing it to vim.

But no, seriously, screen is one of the more useful programs I've ever used. I have a screen session running on a server somewhere, and just log into it from whatever terminal I happen to be using at the time. It's pretty much the best.

Re: GNU Screen - A Hacker's Ideal Terminal

#26
post #22

You might want to consider tmux ( http://tmux.sourceforge.net/ ) as an alternative. Its cleaner (and, incidentally, BSD-licensed) codebase means that it's getting features that have been gathering dust on screen's to-do list for ages. Most notably, its dwm/XMonad-style layouts ( http://tmux.sourceforge.net/tmux6.png ) are really nice. AFAICT, screen doesn't even officially have vertically split windows yet, it's stil…

No offense, but how does it's BSD-licensed codebase mean that it 'gets more features'?

I rephrased my comment - I think it's the cleaner codebase that makes the big difference. Its BSD license has some perks, though - for one thing, it's part of the OpenBSD base system now, which means security auditing and excellent maintainers. That will probably also lead to more features in the long run.

OpenBSD man page: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=tmux

Re: GNU Screen - A Hacker's Ideal Terminal

#27
post #19

Screen is an amazingly useful tool. If you aren't using it or something like it, you are really making life more difficult for yourself. If you want something that isn't GNU or GPL'd, take a look at `tmux`.

I'm just curious- Why would you want to specifically avoid the GPL?

If you look at it through the eyes of the GNU people, you're making an active choice any time you use software. By using GNU software, you're supporting the FSF and the GNU project.

Some people would rather support the BSD license instead.

Other people just don't care at all.

Re: GNU Screen - A Hacker's Ideal Terminal

#28
post #19

Screen is an amazingly useful tool. If you aren't using it or something like it, you are really making life more difficult for yourself. If you want something that isn't GNU or GPL'd, take a look at `tmux`.

I'm just curious- Why would you want to specifically avoid the GPL?

The same way there are people that want their entire software usage to be GPL/MIT/BSD/etc, there are people that want everything to be non-GPL. Unless you are going to be hacking on GNU Screen and feel the need to do something that the GPL forbids, there's really no reason to stop yourself from using a software package just because it's GPL-licensed.

Re: GNU Screen - A Hacker's Ideal Terminal

#30
post #6

Screen uses C-a as its "command" character. Unfortunately, C-a means "go to start of line" in emacs and terminals. The solution? In your .screenrc file: escape ^Ww This will default C-w as the command character.

Isn't C-w kill-region in emacs? I recently came up against this problem too, but what else to change it to .. ?

I like ` (just backtick, no control), though that clashes with Lisp a bit. (I don't usually use Lisp inside tmux, though.)
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