alternatives to Gnu screen under Cygwin

Are there any terminal multiplexers for Cygwin/Windows other than Gnu's screen?

I know of 2 alternatives to the Gnu's screen application: Byobu and TMux. However, neither of these run under Windows using Cygwin.

Jen S.

Posted 2010-12-29T10:20:10.610

Reputation: 595

This question is now out of date. It is possible to run tmux under Cygwin. http://java.ociweb.com/mark/programming/tmuxInCygwin.html

– Jack O'Connor – 2013-11-19T21:57:00.197

Answers

Indeed neither byobu nor tmux are available as Cygwin packages, but you could try building them from source. Lots of programs do build without Cygwin-specific patches these days.

(Btw, byobu actually is Screen, but with a fancy default configuration.)

ak2

Posted 2010-12-29T10:20:10.610

Reputation: 3 387

5As a little update on the matter: tmux is now available on cygwin (as is tmux) as a package, available through the default cygwin installer. – deucalion – 2014-04-13T20:00:53.933

It looks like the current byobu version (5.18) works out of the box on cygwin.

To install it, I did the following:

download byobu from https://launchpad.net/byobu
tar xzpf byobu-* && cd byobu-*
install make and screen in cygwin
./configure && make && make install

and byobu is working...

mdd

Posted 2010-12-29T10:20:10.610

Reputation: 336

Thanks much! Worked for me in latest MSYS2. Does anybody know how i can apply screenrc/screen_layout configs? I have a 3 split pane that im already accustomed to. Maybe there's an easy way to split the panes that I havent seen yet. – Brian Thomas – 2017-08-25T21:50:10.670

@BrianThomas please open a new question. – mdd – 2017-08-25T22:44:18.293

You need pyhton module snack for it to work properly. – mike – 2013-09-27T14:06:19.497

As far as I know, tmux isn't buildable for Cygwin - something to do with Unix Domain sockets not working right in that environment. Sad, I know.

camperdave

Posted 2010-12-29T10:20:10.610

Reputation: 215

Here's an explanation from the tmux-users list: http://www.mail-archive.com/tmux-users@lists.sourceforge.net/msg01347.html

– jmohr – 2012-02-22T21:14:23.910

I would like to update this with a note that I have successfully installed byobu under Cygwin 1.7.9 - although I may have implicitly installed other dependencies, I was able to download the source, compile, and install with absolutely zero issue. I received the same route file note but it did not stop it from loading- the python error will though

Charles Kozler

Posted 2010-12-29T10:20:10.610

Reputation: 19

Would you be kind enough to write the steps you have undertaken? Maybe on a blog or something? – Forethinker – 2013-03-09T23:20:06.000

I installed the cygwin gnu screen package.

Then I downloaded the latest byobu tarball and installed it following it's readme-file. But after installation I could not run it, I gave up at this point:

Administrator@ntmachine ~
$ byobu
/bin/byobu/lib/byobu/include/shutil: line 292: /proc/net/route: No such file or
directory
/usr/bin/env: python: No such file or directory

It would be easy to meet the python requirement in the last line, but I believe the /proc/net/route issue would be difficult.

So I will use screen now on cygwin instead of byobu.

There does not seem to be a tmux package. And as camperdave pointed out, it could be not buildable for cygwin.

mit

Posted 2010-12-29T10:20:10.610

Reputation: 1 369

How would you use screen on cygwin, im my case msys2? I cant find a way to build the source, does anybody have a source and a way to build, e.g. a configure file or a makepkg present? – Brian Thomas – 2017-08-25T21:47:45.813

2Howdy! If you file this as a bug against byobu at bugs.launchpad.net/byobu, I'll do my best to fix it. (Upstream maintainer of byobu here). – Dustin Kirkland – 2012-03-02T03:55:23.047