Command line: terminal multiplexing

Terminal multiplexing means running lots of terminals within one, which is analogous to having lots of windows open on your desktop. It’s pretty much the best thing ever.

This is a slightly advanced topic in the sense that it doesn’t make sense to use lots of terminals if you don’t know how to use one of them. However, I will be using multiplexed terminals in the demos and this way you will understand what is going on.

Here is a little demo showing how collections of terminals can be made and then detached and reattached. This feature is very handy in that it allows you to “save your desktop” and return to it later, while processes continue.

This demo was made using my favorite multiplexer, called tmux. It has a number of nice features, including being able to split windows both horizontally and vertically. The most common multiplexer is GNU Screen. .

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