alok

~$ neat screen cheat sheet

march 8, 2021 11:07:16

tl;dr

• Start new session: screen (duh)
• Start new session with a name: screen -S name
• Reattach session screen -r session_name
• List running session screen -ls

notes

• based on screen default key bindings
• no default key bindings for moving left/right/up/down between splits
• <prefix> :focus up , left , right , down are the commands to bind
• It's a good idea to set a session name either on launch or just before disconnecting. Otherwise the names are difficult to discern between

why screen

ts;rm (too short; read more)

I spend a lot of time in the terminal. My main editor is Vim, and I prefer using it inside the terminal alongside the command line for building. To keep things clean, I like to multiplex my terminal so that I can just have one large window open. The two main ones that you'll find discussed are tmux and screen . I can't remember why, but my multiplexer of choice has always been tmux . I customized my setup and, after using it for years, it has become an extension of the terminal for me. Its commands are second nature, just like editing in Vim.

However, I also spend a lot of time working on remote machines, usually on a cluster with a less customized Linux distro and environment. Whereas my need for multiplexing locally is for workflow layout and organization, I need multiplexing remotely more for leaving in-progress work and jobs running after disconnecting SSH. But on these machines, I usually don't have the luxury of installing tmux . Thankfully though, screen is usually installed.

While screen is very similar in functionality, its default behaviors and keyboard shortcuts are just different enough from my tmux muscle memory to confuse me each time I use it. And I don't use it quite often enough to develop that second set of muscle memory for screen . While I usually bring up this cheat sheet every time I use screen , it doesn't quite list the commands in the way I need them. So, long story short, here is my cheat sheet.