Linux: Twin
Twin is a text-mode window environment. It turns a text terminal into a X11-style display with window manager, terminal windows, and can also serve as display for remote applications. Each terminal window provides the functions of a text-mode Linux console. Twin runs on X11, libggi, itself, the Linux console, and any termcap/ncurses-compatible tty. It supports multiple simultaneous displays, and can attach/detach each display on the fly. [from freshmeat.net]
I do most of my development on a remote server. Since I'm a bash + vim type guy, that suits me just fine. I usually use screen. This allows me to create multiple virtual terminals as well as detach from the session and reattach later, perhaps from a different computer. Twin can do all this and more, but in a user friendly way! I'm just getting started, but it sure does look neat!
Comments
Any chance you can do a write up about your configuration and usage of twin?
Just starting out in Linux and love doing things thru the console. Would love to get this working and try it out.
Tried to get it started and configured on my own. But keep on running into issues left and right. Did a search on Google for any other docs and configuration tips but did not get much information that was informative.
Thanks.
Thanks for the information :)
DÃ rent
Can you send me (jjinux@gmail.com) a screenshot of what it looks like running in a terminal? I haven't run Twin in years, but I remember that when you run it under X, it actually makes use of X. There might be some options to give to Twin to tell it to "stick to the basics".
I remember it said something like "twin has tried all drivers and nothing works"
Now im using screen on my tty's. It's not so usefull as twin, but its ok for the most programs i use in tty (htop, vim, mp3blaster and rtorrent, basically)
Anyway, thanks for your interest! ;)
P.D. As you can note, i dont speak a lot of english xD sorry :P
Yes, it may seem odd at first to have a window manager inside of a window manager, but not any weirder than running Krdc with multiple tabs for multiple remote sessions via VNC or RDP.
I published an article on the viability of Twin not too long ago here: http://northtech.us/content/20110311/adding-convenient-layers-persistent-abstraction-simplify-remote-administration
Basically, one way that Twin really shines is by using your pager, and dedicating a full page screen for Twin.
Then, you can open several twterms, remote into other boxes, and run tmux (instead of screen).
That way, you have a birds eye view of several machines inside of terminal windows, each running tmux (or screen), so you can manage those hosts effectively.
If the paged window that you maximized Twin inside of is in fact a remote Twin session itself, you can detach, attach, and even simultaneously attach to that twin session from multiple points at the same time from work, home, and school, for example.
If you couple that with the power of running tmux on each of the remote ssh sessions in many twterms, you have something really, really kewl.
Twin is very stable too. The current version is 0.6.2 and this window manager has come a long long way since it's introduction to the UNIX world years ago.
I hope that helps :)
Kindest regards,
Bradley D. Thornton
Manager Network Services
http://NorthTech.US
.