¬ just serendipity 🍀 (not just serendipity)

There are plenty of tutorials and insights about tmux on the web. This post isn’t another tutorial. Instead, I’m listing four purposes of why you should use tmux. I’m not here to convince you to use any tool; just read and create your own judgment about it.

Okay, tmux #

Observation: You should probably install and open tmux to follow this mini tutorial. After executing tmux, you’ll probably notice nothing fancy happens—it just feels like opening a new terminal.

Purpose #1: Terminal multiplexing #

Tmux is a terminal multiplexer. If you are used to opening several windows of your favorite terminal emulator (terminator, gnome-terminal, xfce4-terminal, konsole), you should probably stop that now.

Observation: <prefix> denotes your tmux prefix key. The default is C-b, but it can be changed—for example, vim users tend to dislike this setting because C-b is frequent in vim (it scrolls one page up, like Page Up). C-a is a common alternative.

Here’s how you open a new tab (window in tmux terminology) on tmux: <prefix> c. No mouse; no need to play with two windows. To switch between windows: <prefix> n for next and <prefix> p for previous.

Now for multiplexing: to create a new horizontal split, use <prefix> ". To create a new vertical split, use <prefix> %. To switch between splits: <prefix> o. This subset of keystrokes is sufficient to boost your terminal productivity.

Purpose #2: Pair programming #

Suppose you want to share a terminal session with a friend. What is a terminal session? Think of it as an analog to desktop sharing in the GUI world. However, it is more than simple sharing—the observer has full control over the terminal, just like you.

Therefore, a terminal session is suitable for:

• Pair programming
• Remote support (from a technical person)

What do you do? Open tmux. Tell your friend to SSH into your machine. They run tmux attach-session. This assumes you only have one active session. That’s it. To quit, execute exit or type Ctrl+D.

Purpose #3: Highly configurable #

Tmux is very configurable and can be scripted to do almost anything concerning shell organization. Look at other people’s .tmux.conf files, merge them, and create your own reasonable configuration.

Purpose #4: IDE/programming workspace #

Tmux can be used as an “IDE” or programming workspace. This becomes really easy with tmuxinator. The idea is to center all your workflow into one place: tmux. No need to swap windows.

Conclusion #

Stop hitting alt-tab and using the mouse. Use tmux—but only if it would boost your productivity. Otherwise, stick to your habits.

Observation: What about GNU screen? I haven’t tried it. Most sources I read and most people I know prefer tmux, finding it more modern and powerful.

Bonus: Detaching from a terminal, then re-attaching to it later is useful for monitoring servers, though there are better solutions for that.