Advanced screen features in Ubuntu 9.04

Possibly a decade ago i discovered a programm called ’screen’ on a SGI IRIX machine. It was an enlightenment! Multiplexing different sessions on the console was so great for chatting on the IRC and surfing the web using lynx – at the same time! But the greatest feature was the persistence of the screens despite the terminals using them. So i could connect from place A, starting a screen, logging out from the terminal and logging in to the same screen from place B later. Wicked!

Time went by and i started to spot the more advanced features of screen. For example you could configure key-bindings and which screens to create at startup by default. But these advanced topics were not always easy to configure so i mostly stuck to the default screen package.
Now ars technica reported that the Ubuntu developers simplified the configuration of screen options using a new package called ’screen-profiles’

When starting screen for the first time the screen-profiles-helper menu will appear. There you may configure a load of options. Quoting ars technica:

Ubuntu’s screen-profiles will display status and task management bars at the bottom of the window. These are intended to serve roughly the same purpose as the GNOME panel. When the user creates additional screen “windows,” these will be displayed in the task list and the active window will be displayed with highlighting.

The status bar at the bottom shows colored bits of text that describe the system’s current status. Some of these include the current processor load, the amount of memory used, the number of users logged into the system, the current uptime, the version of Ubuntu, battery status, WiFi signal strength, and the current network load. When used in an EC2 instance, there is even one that will show you the current cost of your session. The user can configure which ones are displayed by using a text-based menu system.

The ’screen-profiles’ package was introduced in Ubuntu 9.04 (”Jaunty Jackalope”). For more usage information please check out the Ubuntu server guide documentation at help.ubuntu.com. Have fun using ’screen’!