Install and setup screen on Ubuntu 14.04

May 29, 2014

Ubuntu screen

warning

This post is more than 5 years old. While math doesn't age, code and operating systems do. Please use the code/ideas with caution and expect some issues due to the age of the content. I am keeping these posts up for archival purposes because I still find them useful for reference, even when they are out of date!

screen is a great tool for the terminal, allowing me to have many windows (sessions) open at the same time-- say vim in one, an ssh session in another, etc. This post documents my basic setup -- if you have cool/different ideas about how to do this type of thing let me know.

First we use apt-get to install Screen from the Ubuntu repository: 

$ sudo apt-get install screen

That’s all you need to get started. There are many getting started tutorials out there– here's one to start .

I like to customize my use of screen, so I setup a .screenrc file in my home directory; that is ~/.screenrc. The contents can be something like this (I snagged this example online long ago– if you have a link/reference I’d be happy to give credit in the post): 

# .screenrc

# GNU Screen - main configuration file
# All other .screenrc files will source this file to inherit settings.

# Allow bold colors - necessary for some reason
attrcolor b ".I"

# Tell screen how to set colors. AB = background, AF=foreground
termcapinfo xterm 'Co#256:AB=\E[48;5;%dm:AF=\E[38;5;%dm'

# Enables use of shift-PgUp and shift-PgDn
termcapinfo xterm|xterms|xs|rxvt ti@:te@

# Erase background with current bg color
defbce "on"

# Enable 256 color term
term xterm-256color

# Cache 30000 lines for scroll back
defscrollback 30000

hardstatus alwayslastline
# Very nice tabbed colored hardstatus line
hardstatus string '%{= Kd} %{= Kd}%-w%{= Kr}[%{= KW}%n %t%{= Kr}]%{= Kd}%+w %-= %{KG} %H%{KW}|%{KY}%101`%{KW}|%D %M %d %Y%{= Kc} %C%A%{-}'

This .screenrc file provides a nice status line to keep track of all the open screens. In addition to this file, I also have a collection of other files that I use for specific projects. For example, for working on this blog I might have the file .screenrc_blog with the contents: 

# .screenrc_blog

# main screen setup
source /home/cstrelioff/.screenrc

chdir /home/cstrelioff
screen
title "home"

chdir /home/cstrelioff/MyBlog
screen
title "blog"

Using the above file I start screen, creating home and blog windows at startup, using the command: 

$ screen -c .screenrc_blog

As always, if you have questions or comments please let me know.

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