The screen command is a popular and powerful tool for managing multiple terminal sessions on Linux. It allows users to create and manage multiple virtual terminals, or “screens”, within a single terminal window, and switch between them easily.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to use the screen command on Linux. We will assume that you have already installed a Linux operating system on your system.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you will need the following:

• A system running a Linux operating system
• A user with administrative privileges on your system

Installing the screen Command

To use the screen command on Linux, you need to install the screen package.

On most Linux distributions, the screen package is included in the default package repositories. To install the screen package, use the package manager of your Linux distribution.

For example, on Ubuntu and Debian, you can use the apt package manager to install the screen package:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install screen

On CentOS and Fedora, you can use the yum package manager to install the screen package:

sudo yum update
sudo yum install screen

On Arch Linux and its derivatives, you can use the pacman package manager to install the screen package:

sudo pacman -Sy
sudo pacman -S screen

After installing the screen package, you can use the screen command in your terminal.

Using the screen Command

To use the screen command, open a terminal window and run the following command:

screen

This will start a new screen session, and create a new virtual terminal within the terminal window.

You can use the new virtual terminal just like a regular terminal. You can run commands, execute programs, and access files and directories.

To switch between the virtual terminals, you can use the Ctrl + a and n or p keys. The Ctrl + a key combination is the default control key for screen, and n or p means next or previous.

For example, to switch to the next virtual terminal, press Ctrl a**followed by**n**. To switch to the previous virtual terminal, press** Ctrl + a**followed by**p.

To create a new virtual terminal, press Ctrl + a followed by c. This will create a new virtual terminal and switch to it automatically.

To close a virtual terminal, press Ctrl + a followed by d. This will detach the virtual terminal from the screen session, but the virtual terminal will continue running in the background.

To list all the virtual terminals that are running in the screen session, press Ctrl + a followed by w. This will display a list of the virtual terminals and their status.

To reattach a detached virtual terminal, use the screen command with the -r option and the session name or number.

For example, to reattach the first detached virtual terminal, run the following command:

screen -r 0

To reattach a detached virtual terminal that has a specific name, run the following command:

screen -r SESSION_NAME

For example, if the name of the detached virtual terminal is myterminal, run the following command:

screen -r myterminal

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned how to use the screen command on Linux. You learned how to create and manage multiple virtual terminals, and how to switch between them and attach and detach them from the screen session.

With the screen command, you can easily manage multiple terminal sessions and run multiple programs and commands simultaneously.