I use Byobu as my default terminal multiplexer for many years now. Best part is Byobu comes pre-installed in ubuntu. My experience is largely with Ubuntu so I am not sure if CentOS/RHEL and other Linux OS provide this package OOTB or not.
Internally Byobu uses tmux as the multiplexer. So many of the features are also inherited from tmux but basically, byobu makes it so much easier to exploit the tmux features in those cases.
Some of the not-so-obvious features that I like about Byobu are:
– save scrollback buffer to file! You can use printscreen facility in Byobu. Hit Ctrl + F7 to open current window history in your editor. Then you can save that file somewhere for your records. Very handy when you are making some changes and want to keep record of what happened.
– rename the tabs. You can create multiple tabs / windows using F2 key and navigate between them using F3 and F4 keys. But those tabs usually get just number index. But you can F8 to rename those tabs to have more meaningful names like dev and prod etc.
– Resize the panes in the given tab – In a given tab of byobu can create further split screens using Ctrl+F2 and Shift+F2 keys. Those will split current screen area into vertical or horizontal half. But then sometimes, you want to resize these panes to have better viewing area for some tasks at hand. You can use Shift + Alt +arrow keys to resize those panes.
– Re-arrange the panes – Sometimes, you are not happy that you created panes by splitting screen horizontally, then you use Shift+F8 (sometimes twice) to cycle through various different layout changes offered by Byobu to suit a new layout for yourself.
For now, that’s it. Do you have your favourite trick for Byobu? leave a message as I would like to learn it as well!
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