Using tmux in Linux Mint

The terminal multiplexer tmux allows the user to detach and later re-attach to a certain terminal session, preserving running programs. It can be used to run multiple terminals in a single terminal window in parallel and to connect to a tmux session from multiple computers.

The configuration used in this document has been tested on Linux Mint 22.1 in September 2025.

Contents

Software

Install the terminal emulator Alacritty and the terminal multiplexer tmux:

sudo apt install alacritty
sudo apt install tmux

Font

Install the Meslo Nerd Font and update the font cache:

wget https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/download/v3.4.0/Meslo.zip
unzip Meslo.zip -d Meslo
rm Meslo.zip
sudo mv Meslo /usr/share/fonts/opentype
fc-cache -f -v

The exact names of the installed Meslo fonts can be determined using the utility fc-list (there are multiple variants of the font with small, medium, and large line height available):

fc-list : family style | grep Meslo | sort | uniq

Configure the font for Alacritty in the ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.toml configuration file:

[env]
TERM = "xterm-256color"

[font]
size = 11.0

[font.normal]
family = "MesloLGM Nerd Font"
style = "Regular"

[font.italic]
family = "MesloLGM Nerd Font"
style = "Italic"

[font.bold]
family = "MesloLGM Nerd Font"
style = "Bold"

[font.bold_italic]
family = "MesloLGM Nerd Font"
style = "Bold Italic"

Color Theme

Install the color theme Catppuccin for Alacritty, Mocha “flavour”. Unfortunately, Alacritty does not support importing the Catppuccin configuration into its own configuration file, therefore we append it:

curl -LO --output-dir ~/.config/alacritty \
  https://github.com/catppuccin/alacritty/raw/main/catppuccin-mocha.toml
cat <(echo -e '\n# BEGIN `catppuccin-mocha.toml`\n') \
  ~/.config/alacritty/catppuccin-mocha.toml \
  <(echo -e '\n# END `catppuccin-mocha.toml`') \
  >> ~/.config/alacritty/alacritty.toml
rm ~/.config/alacritty/catppuccin-mocha.toml

Install the color theme Catppuccin for tmux:

mkdir -p ~/.config/tmux/plugins/catppuccin
git clone -b v2.1.3 \
  https://github.com/catppuccin/tmux.git \
  ~/.config/tmux/plugins/catppuccin/tmux

Add Catppuccin plugin to the ~/.tmux.conf file (based on the Recommended Default Configuration; CPU, battery status, and uptime removed, date and time added):


# Options to make tmux more pleasant.
set -g mouse on
set -g default-terminal "tmux-256color"
set -ag terminal-overrides ",xterm-256color:RGB"

# Configure the Catppuccin plugin.
set -g @catppuccin_flavor "mocha"
set -g @catppuccin_window_status_style "rounded"

# Load Catppuccin.
run ~/.config/tmux/plugins/catppuccin/tmux/catppuccin.tmux

# Make the status line pretty and add some modules.
set -g status-right-length 100
set -g status-left-length 100
set -g status-left ""
set -g status-right "#{E:@catppuccin_status_application}"   # Current program.
set -ag status-right "#{E:@catppuccin_status_session}"      # Tmux session ID.
set -ag status-right "#{E:@catppuccin_status_date_time}"    # Date and time.

Useful Software

Web browser

Install the text-based web browser w3m:

sudo apt install w3m

Alternatively, the web browser Links can be used:

sudo apt install links

Fuzzy finder

Install the fuzzy finder fzf. The version available in the Linux Mint repository is rather old. Download a more recent release and install it:

wget https://github.com/junegunn/fzf/releases/download/v0.65.1/fzf-0.65.1-linux_amd64.tar.gz
tar -xvzf fzf-0.65.1-linux_amd64.tar.gz
rm fzf-0.65.1-linux_amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv fzf /usr/local/bin

Activate shell integration with Bash in ~/.bashrc:


# Set up fzf key bindings and fuzzy completion.
eval "$(fzf --bash)"

The fuzzy finder can be invoked by entering ** and subsequently pressing the Tab key.