Using screen: part 2

First you will need your copy of the screen program. On debian you'll need the screen package. For other system I'm not sure how to get it, but you take a look at the screen website.

To use screen start your favorite terminal program. Like rxvt, gnome-terminal or xterm. Then type on the command line:

# screen

It will now show some warranty blurb (which it won't show if you use the -q option).

You're now in a screen session. You can do everything you could do in a normal terminal, like typing commands, or using direction keys. Let's try that by typing some commands.

# ls
bin doc src

Ok, so it shows some directory like we expect. Type C-a c to create a new screen. That's control and a, followed by a c. Again we see an empty screen. Something like:

#

In this screen we can also type some commands. Type C-a w to get a list of all the screens that are currently open. The list at the bottom of the screen looks like this:

0-$ bash  1*$bash

This line shows the screen that are open at this time. The number is the screen number that is open. The - shows a screen that's not visible and the * shows the currently visible screen. The bash is the title of the screen.

Next time I will show some more tips on using screen, like switching between screens.