GNU Screen

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GNU Screen
Developer(s) GNU Project
Initial release 1987
Stable release 4.0.3 (August 7, 2008; 4 years ago (2008-08-07)) [±]
Preview release Non [±]
Written in C
Operating system Unix-like
Available in ?
Type Command line interface
License GNU GPL v3
Website www.gnu.org/software/screen/

GNU Screen is a software application that can be used to multiplex several virtual consoles, allowing a user to access multiple separate terminal sessions inside a single terminal window or remote terminal session. It is useful for dealing with multiple programs from a command line interface, and for separating programs from the Unix shell that started the program.

Released under the terms of version 3 or later of the GNU General Public License, GNU Screen is free software.

Contents

Features [edit]

GNU Screen can be thought of as a text version of graphical window managers, or as a way of putting virtual terminals into any login session. It is a wrapper that allows multiple text programs to run at the same time, and provides features that allow the user to use the programs within a single interface productively. This enables the following features: persistence, multiple windows, and session sharing.

Screen is often used when a network connection to the terminal is unreliable, as a dropped network connection typically terminates all programs the user was running.

History [edit]

Screen was originally designed by Oliver Laumann and Carsten Bormann and published in 1987.[1]

Design criteria included faithful VT100 emulation[dubious ] (including ANSI X3.64 (ISO 6429) and ISO 2022) and reasonable performance for heavy daily use when character-based terminals were still common. Later, the at-the-time novel feature of disconnection/reattachment was added.

Ca. 1990 Oliver Laumann handed over maintenance of the code to Jürgen Weigert and Michael Schroeder at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, who later moved the project to the GNU Project and added features such as split-screen, cut-and-paste, and screen-sharing.[2]

See also [edit]

  • xpra: a tool that lets you run X Window System applications on one machine, disconnect them from that machine's display, then reconnect them to another machine's display.
  • Byobu (software): a frontend for GNU Screen
  • tmux: similar software under BSD license

Further reading [edit]

References [edit]

Notes [edit]

  1. ^ "BSD screen manager -- Part 1 of 2 - (nf)". net.sources. 20 Mar 1987. Web link. Retrieved 11 Jun 2009.
  2. ^ screen ftp

External links [edit]