What it is
tmux is a terminal multiplexer. Inside one terminal window it runs several shells in windows and split panes, and it keeps them running when you close the window or lose an SSH connection. Later you reattach and everything is where you left it.
tmux new -s work # start a session; detach with Ctrl-b d, return with: tmux attach -t work
Why it’s here
- Sessions that survive. Long jobs on a remote machine keep running after you disconnect.
- Panes and windows. Several shells side by side, without extra terminal windows.
- Works everywhere. The same setup works locally and over SSH.
On CoreDesktop
tmux is installed from pacman, and CoreDesktop clones TPM, the tmux plugin manager, into ~/.tmux/plugins/tpm. CoreDesktop doesn’t ship a ~/.tmux.conf: list the plugins you want there and load TPM at the end of it, as TPM’s README shows.
update keeps tmux current with the pacman packages, and also pulls the latest TPM and every plugin under ~/.tmux/plugins.