Episode: 1968
Title: HPR1968: Advanced Terminal Usage: byobu
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1968/hpr1968.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 12:39:22

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Long time listener, first time caller here, my name is John Doe but you can call me John.
Today I'm going to be talking about a more advanced usage of the terminal in Linux.
This basic tutorial assumes that you have a basic knowledge of getting to the terminal and installing software so we can skip that and make my job a bit easier.
First, you have software that you may want to run and keep running, even if we disconnect or even if we walk to another machine.
Classically, there was screen for this, but times change and needs advance. My current favorite is Bioboo.
A wrapper for the screen in TMAX terminal multiplexers, TMAX by default now, which is a change since featured on episode 770 of HPR.
To run Bioboo, simply type its name at the terminal and watch its magic.
We say it's a wrapper and this is in double context. It encapsulates the TMAX or screen binary in the script and it provides some useful enhancements to be already awesome capabilities of a basic multiplexer, including a nice bar at the bottom, detailing system stats, configurable to whatever stats you need to display.
A screen multiplexer is an application that allows the running of multiple terminals and their applications within a single remote or local window, allowing you to change tasks with relative ease, similar to a window manager and X but with no mouse needed.
For a basic test, go ahead and hit F2. You'll get a second terminal, the textural text tray at the bottom indicating your current and available terminals.
F3 and F4 allow you to cycle between tasks and F2 spawns additional.
For those following along, go ahead and hit F6. You'll drop back to a shell with Bioboo running everything in the background and you can exit the terminal or run whatever else you need to outside of Bioboo's control.
Use Bioboo command again to reconnect. Note that your session is remained open and all terminal sessions are available for you to pursue.
Also note that you can use Bioboo again as the same user both remotely and locally and keep all of your terminals going, even on multiple systems and screens at the same time.
You can even share the session with others, assuming their ability to log in and cross code, monitor the usage of their session, or for educational or group coding.
A popular and useful feature of terminal windows is the ability to maintain a scroll back buffer and using a multiplexer ostensibly destroys this ability on the graphical side, assuming you're using it in a graphical environment, keeping the text for itself.
Fear not, good hacker. For the simple application of F7 will activate scroll back mode and allow your cursor or arrow and page keys to scroll up and down the text buffer.
Enter, settles you back to the end, allowing quick access to whatever just happened in that specific task window while you were away.
This has been an introduction to advanced terminal usage brought to you by John Dell. For those of you NPR nerds out there, this is HPR, hacker public radio.
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