CODEWITHSUNDEEP
emacsconsoleterminalgnu-screenxterm
Thorsten
Thorsten

Reputation: 3461

Emacs (Multi)Term vs Xterm vs Console & TMUX

I'm an Emacs user trying to learn a software tool that is best run from a terminal. The default set-up to get the most out of that tool is to use xterm for interaction and call Vim for editing. One could simply replace Vim with Emacs in this setup, but then one would spend most of the time working outside of Emacs in an Xterm.

I figured out there is (Multi)Term-mode in Emacs, but it is really hard to find out about its pros and cons. So I have the following questions:

  1. [Without X11]: Why or when would anybody use Emacs (Mutli)Term instead of Console & TMUX (or GNU Screen)?
  2. [With X11] How does Emacs (Multi)Term compare to Xterm?

Obviously speed is one criteria for comparison, but I'm sure there are other.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3146

Answers (1)

Stefan
Stefan

Reputation: 28531

  1. You'd use Emacs term over tmux/screen if you're more familiar with Emacs and already use it for many other things and/or if you spend more time in Emacs than in the terminal.
  2. Emacs's Term is much less sophisticated and much less reliable than xterm. But it works within Emacs so if you live in Emacs, it might be a good option.

Note that you may also prefer to use Emacs's M-x shell functionality, which gives you a command line without giving you an actual terminal emulator. That means that the commands are edited in Emacs before being sent to the underlying command-line program, so all the usual Emacs editing can be used there (and the history manipulation as well as command completion is performed by Emacs as well, which can be great, or can be disappointing (e.g. if the completion needs info which Emacs does not have)).

Upvotes: 2

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