Aside from these notes, this article will not presume any previous knowledge. For some commands, I may point out similarities or differences. If you are already comfortable with the screen command, you can quickly scan this article for the differences. We had a great response to our screen command article, and I feel like our readers will really enjoy using some of the updated features of tmux. There are many similarities between the two applications. If you’re used to the screen command, you’ll find it easy to get started right away.

Tmux is considered to be the next evolutionary step forward from the GNU Screen multiplexer. This is especially true if your work involves accessing remote machines via command line only. Learning how to use a terminal multiplexer will save you a lot of headaches if you spend a lot of time in the terminal. With tmux, you can create multiple terminal sessions that can be opened (attached) and closed (detached) or displayed simultaneously all from one window.

Tmux vertical split