How to Install Tmux from Source

Tmux is a terminal multiplexer. Terminal multiplexer allow you to switch easily between several programs in one terminal, you can detach them (keep running in the background) and reattach them again to a different terminal.

In this article I will show how you can install tmux on your Linux system from source.

Install Tmux from Source

Follow the below steps to install tmux on your system.

Step #1 : Install Libevent

First of all install libevent package on your system. Follow the below command to download and install libevent from its official website,

# wget https://github.com/libevent/libevent/releases/download/release-2.0.22-stable/libevent-2.0.22-stable.tar.gz

After downloading, extract it and configure and install.

# tar xvf libevent-2.0.22-stable.tar.gz
# cd libevent-2.0.22-stable
# ./configure
# make # use make -j 8 to speed it up if your machine is capable
# make install

Step #2 : Install Tmux

Now download and install the Tmux tarball from its official website. As of writing this blog, the latest version is 2.2.

# wget https://github.com/tmux/tmux/releases/download/2.2/tmux-2.2.tar.gz
# tar xvf tmux-2.2
# ./configure
# make
# make install

If you are getting below error while install tmux you will need to install gcc package on your system.

#./configure
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking whether build environment is sane... yes
checking for a thread-safe mkdir -p... /bin/mkdir -p
checking for gawk... gawk
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking whether make supports nested variables... yes
checking build system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu
checking for gcc... no
checking for cc... no
checking for cl.exe... no
configure: error: in `/tmp/tmux-2.2':
configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See `config.log' for more details

Step #3 : Install GCC

Follow the below command to Install GCC package.

# yum install gcc

Step #4 : Testing

Run the below command to test your tmux installed version.

# tmux -V
tmux 2.2