On Mon, 29 Dec 2014 07:58:37 +0000 Robert Thompson
<[email protected]> wrote:

> Once upon a time, the serial issue would have kept me using screen.
> But, these days I use picoterm as the minimal pty<-->serial
> connector, and that works as well with tmux as screen's own serial
> handling worked with screen. It also works well without any
> multiplexer, just letting your (virtual) terminal handle whatever
> escape codes are coming, so my smaller utility images only have to
> include the tiny picocom binary rather than the much bigger screen
> (or tmux+picocom) binary.
> 
> Picoterm itself is unfortunately GPL, but it's also pretty simple;
> basically just abstracts the serial-pty and the console-pty stuff and
> plugs them together with a limited set of command keys for exit,
> baud-up/down, etc, and for launching rzsz-style file-transfer
> programs.
> 
> For people who use serial devices on a regular basis, this is very
> useful. I am *very* carefully resisting the urge to ask that it be in
> toybox, at least until after everything already on the list is done :)
> 
> If boxes has a picocom toy, I'll be very happy... if not, I'll
> eventually make the time to try to contribute one. Since
> terminal-side and serial-side are pretty much a matter of doing the
> same thing for different reasons, it might not even significantly
> change the size of the binary...

I have no plans to add a picocom / picoterm toy, or anything similar.  I
don't know what Rob's thoughts on that are.  I have no objection to it,
could be useful for embedded development.

> On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 3:50 AM, David Seikel <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 29 Dec 2014 03:12:03 +0000 (UTC) Jason Spiro
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > > Rob Landley <rob@...> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I plan to implement vi over the next year, but it's one of the
> > > > four realy big commands required by posix (sed, awk, sh, vi)
> > > > and I've been debugging sed against real-world data for _weeks_
> > > > now. [...]
> > > >
> > > > There are some others (the kernel build requires bc now, if I'm
> > > > doing "less" and "vi" I should be able to do "screen", and
> > > > "rsync" is really useful...) but right now I'm focused on the
> > > > list for 1.0, and there are a lot of smaller commands (and the
> > > > giant backlog of pending cleanups) that could get knocked off
> > > > the list faster...
> > >
> > > In this message, I will tell you why I think toybox should emulate
> > > tmux instead of GNU Screen.
> >
> > Well, if I can go ahead with my plans for boxes for toybox, which
> > will eventually include a screen / tmux type system, then no one
> > has to convince me to make it more like tmux than screen.  I fully
> > agree with you, tmux is much better, it's what I use.  I've
> > configured tmux to be friendly to screen users in the past, and
> > convinced one of my clients to switch to it.  Actually, he
> > convinced himself with the phrase "ooooh, you can resize the window
> > panes with your mouse".  Mind you, he was resizing MY window panes
> > from another computer at the time, which annoyed me watching from
> > the other side of the city.  lol
> >
> > > Let me begin.
> > >
> > > GNU Screen, a "terminal multiplexer", is very useful.  Still, I've
> > > since switched to tmux.  It's a newer terminal multiplexer, and is
> > > BSD-licensed. It is true that GNU Screen has now started making
> > > releases again for the first time in half a decade.  Still, I like
> > > tmux so much that I don't plan to switch back to Screen.
> >
> > From my point of view tmux seems to be better designed.
> >
> > > tmux makes certain operations easier.[1]  For example:  It ships
> > > with preconfigured keybindings (<C-b> 0, <C-b> 1, ..., <C-b> 9)
> > > which let you jump to low-numbered windows in just a few
> > > keystrokes.  Another example:  To renumber a window, you need
> > > only hit five keys (<C-b> . 9 <RET>), instead of nine (<C-a> : n
> > > u <TAB> 9 <RET>).
> > >
> > > tmux is also easier to learn.  For example:  It shows a status
> > > line (tab bar) by default, instead of forcing users to mess with
> > > complex configuration options just to get a status line.  See
> > > screenshot[2].
> > >
> > > tmux is included in the software repositories of Ubuntu, Debian
> > > "stable", and other distros.
> > >
> > > tmux's basic keybindings are fairly similar to Screen's.  But,
> > > instead of Ctrl+A, tmux's default prefix is Ctrl+B.  (This is
> > > reconfigurable.)
> >
> > I do generally configure the hot key and a few others for screen
> > compatibility.  So that if I ever have to use screen, then I know
> > what to do, and others used to screen can still use my tmux
> > installs.
> >
> > Tmux is also built for scripting, which is hard for screen.  I have
> > a script that, for instance, connects to a tmux session, switches
> > through particular windows in that session, issuing commands to
> > each window, to automate some backups, running from a cron job.
> > The other sysadmin for that server had originally used screen, coz
> > she didn't know about tmux, and completely failed to get screen to
> > be able to do anything like that.
> >
> > > You can find a tmux reference card[3] on the Web.
> > >
> > > Dear Rob:  I know you mention Screen in your todo.txt file[4].
> > > But please consider instead mentioning tmux.  Those who are
> > > familiar only with good old Screen can either adapt to the nicer
> > > user interface that tmux provides, or can download and install
> > > Screen themselves.
> >
> >
> > In the end, I'll likely do what I did for the boxes based editors,
> > make it generic, and allow people to build their own variations
> > easily.  So screen and tmux users will both be happy.  After all,
> > the boxes based editors already support all the editors / pagers on
> > the toybox roadmap (except sed), and a couple more.
> >
> > --
> > A big old stinking pile of genius that no one wants
> > coz there are too many silver coated monkeys in the world.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Toybox mailing list
> > [email protected]
> > http://lists.landley.net/listinfo.cgi/toybox-landley.net
> >
> >


-- 
A big old stinking pile of genius that no one wants
coz there are too many silver coated monkeys in the world.

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