Install tmux with Homebrew, apk, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, pacman, zypper

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• tmux

Project history

Official OpenBSD documentation records tmux as started in 2007 by Nicholas Marriott, imported into OpenBSD on June 1, 2009, and first released with OpenBSD 4.6. The upstream CHANGES file records an initial CVS import on July 9, 2007, when detaching, reattaching, creating sessions, and listing sessions already worked well enough for shells, with status bar and customization still missing.

tmux's development model is unusual among popular developer tools: the tmux wiki states that OpenBSD CVS is the primary source repository and that GitHub carries the portable version, with a script applying OpenBSD commits to GitHub every few hours. This keeps tmux rooted in OpenBSD base-system practice while making it available as a portable package for other Unix-like systems.

Adoption history

tmux grew from an OpenBSD base utility into a cross-platform terminal standard. The official README says current releases run on OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Linux, macOS, and Solaris, and the batch input records package names across apk, Homebrew, Debian, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, pacman, Ubuntu, and zypper.

By 2026, the GitHub repository and wiki showed a large public footprint, including tens of thousands of stars, a public issue tracker, a wiki, releases, and a tmux-users mailing list. The project remained volunteer-developed but widely relied on, with releases documented through GitHub release pages and the CHANGES file.

How it is used

tmux is used to keep long-running terminal work alive across disconnects, split a terminal into windows and panes, switch between programs, script terminal layouts, and share or inspect sessions. Its configuration files, commonly /etc/tmux.conf and ~/.tmux.conf, are central to dotfiles culture.

In the package-nerd niche, tmux is also a platform for other packages. Several packages in this same batch, including tmux-mem-cpu-load, tmux-sessionizer, and tmux-xpanes, exist because tmux exposes stable session, pane, status-line, and command interfaces that small tools can compose with.

Why package nerds care

tmux matters to package users because it is both an application and a substrate. It is packaged nearly everywhere, has a small and documented dependency stack, and creates an ecosystem where status monitors, pane launchers, session switchers, and dotfiles plugins can be distributed independently.

Timeline

• 2007: Nicholas Marriott started tmux, according to OpenBSD's innovations page.
• 2007-07-09: Upstream CHANGES records the initial CVS import with sessions, detach, reattach, and shell use already working.
• 2009-06-01: tmux was imported into OpenBSD.
• 2009: tmux first shipped with OpenBSD 4.6.
• 2026: GitHub releases page listed tmux 3.7b as the latest bug-fix release.

Related projects

• OpenBSD is the primary upstream home for tmux development.
• GNU screen is the older terminal-multiplexer tradition that tmux belongs beside, though tmux's official docs emphasize tmux's own client-server, sessions, windows, and panes model.
• tmux-mem-cpu-load, tmux-sessionizer, and tmux-xpanes are package-level examples of the tmux ecosystem.

Sources

• https://github.com/tmux/tmux
• https://github.com/tmux/tmux/blob/master/CHANGES
• https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki
• https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki/Contributing
• https://man.openbsd.org/tmux
• https://www.openbsd.org/innovations.html
• input.json source_facts.package-manager