Screen Tweaks on Ubuntu Jaunty

Screen is a must-have tool for anyone that spends time at the command line. I move my .screenrc file around with me whenever I move machine, and hadn't thought about it much for a while, but when I started screen on a Ubuntu Jaunty box with no .screenrc, I noticed that the system-wide screen config in /etc/screenrc is now quite useful.

The screenshot below shows the status line from the default config.


Using two whole lines for status messages seems a bit much but I'm a little old school when it comes to preserving display space. So you get load, CPU, free memory, a clock and named screens without any effort now.

I copied the /etc/screenrc to ~/.screenrc and added a few options

bind x
bind ^x
ignorecase on


The bind options stop C-ax, which normally detaches the terminal from screen, from working. I tend to type that keystroke by accident fairly frequently. The last option ignores case during history searches.

If you use lots of gnome-terminal windows or even tabs to manage your terminal sessions you should try screen, it will speed you up a lot once the keystrokes get wired into your muscle memory.