This is quick basic intro to GNU Screen.
If you haven’t installed screen, do so. It rocks.
Starting up
Start screen. You’ll get a splash screen. Hit space to make it go away.
Depending on your flavour of *nix, you’ll get between 1 and n
screens. First one is numbered 0. Try to switch to screen 1: Ctrl-a
1. If you get a message, create screen 1 with Ctrl-a c
(create). Now you can switch back and forth between 0 and 1 with
Ctrl-a 0 and Ctrl-a 1.
Want a “real” Ctrl-a? (If you’re in Emacs, you do.) Type Ctrl-a a.
Detaching
Start an editor in one screen, load a file and start editing. Detach
with Ctrl-a d (detach). Logout of the shell, then login
again. Attach to the screen: screen -r (reattach). You should be
back where you left. Continue editing.
Finally
Screen is perfect for flaky connections, you’ll be back where you left off even if you get a hangup.
You can use screen -r -d to cleanly reattach from another session.
If you want a bunch of screens at startup, edit your ~/.screenrc. Mine looks like this:
shell -$SHELL
screen -t SHELL0 0
screen -t ROOT 1
screen -t SHELL2 2
screen -t SHELL3 3
screen -t SHELL4 4
screen -t SHELL5 5
The first line starts the current $SHELL in login mode. The others
set up six windows and gives them titles.
Type man screen for more info.
Happy screening!
Update: here’s a more full-featured tutorial. (Via NTK.)