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psp
Asked: 2011-07-07 09:20:24 +0800 CST

256 Color Issue when using GNU Screen inside GNU Screen

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When I have a SSH session in GNU Screen to another machine on which I'm also using GNU Screen, 256 colors don't seem to work. The $TERM is still set correctly. However, if I run Vim, the theme does not look correct as it would with only one screen session.

Local machine: 256 colors in VIM okay
    Screen session: 256 colors in VIM okay
        SSH to remote machine: 256 colors in VIM okay
            Screen session on remote machine: 256 colors in VIM _not_ okay
vim gnu-screen

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This is probably a bug in screen. It has some known funkiness with recursive sessions. Unfortunately the project is pretty stagnant (last version released 3 years ago) and bug fixes and features aren't getting added.

    Try tmux instead. It does basically the same thing but has a lot of the problematic bits from screen smoothed out and is actively maintained and developed.

    • 2

  2. Tmux is indeed the way to go. By the way, I usually solve the color issues in screen/tmux by using aliases:

    alias tmux='tmux -2 -u'
alias vim='env TERM=xterm-256color vim'

    This way the applications will always display correct colors, if it's not the case then it's a bug and you should check it out with the developers. IIRC the #tmux chan on FreeNode is full of developers and experienced users.

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