15

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.

1

5 Answers 5

8

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.)

1
  • 6
    As 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
    Apr 13, 2014 at 20:00
8

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

To install it, I did the following:

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

and byobu is working...

3
  • You need pyhton module snack for it to work properly.
    – mike
    Sep 27, 2013 at 14:06
  • 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. Aug 25, 2017 at 21:50
  • @BrianThomas please open a new question.
    – mdd
    Aug 25, 2017 at 22:44
4

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.

1
1

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

1
  • Would you be kind enough to write the steps you have undertaken? Maybe on a blog or something? Mar 9, 2013 at 23:20
0

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.

2
  • 2
    Howdy! 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). Mar 2, 2012 at 3:55
  • 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? Aug 25, 2017 at 21:47

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .