Customizing tmux and making it less dreadful
5 comments
·August 4, 2025benrutter
EPendragon
I feel that “make your own” has been the major driver behind looking into the configs myself. Learning other configs feels like a chore. I would rather learn and make it as I go. In the end I will have a sense of complete ownership. I will know what needs to change if I decide to change it. I think investing time into making your own wins in the long run.
EPendragon
I will definitely check it out. Thanks for the suggestion! What would you say is different between tmux and Zellij, and why did you start using the latter?
sjbr
you could also use Oh my tmux!: https://github.com/gpakosz/.tmux
EPendragon
I have checked it out initially. It hd a good set of defaults. I didn’t like everything that came with it, but I did read through its config file and borrowed a couple of lines from there into my own setup. IMO the problem with using a prebuilt config like that is that it requires you to learn all of its keybinds, styling, layout. I would rather build my own incrementally but have a sense of knowing everything that is going on in my setup.
I love tmux! Using it as a tool suddenly enabled me to do so many things. Lately I've been using Zellij, which I'd massively recommend for anyone not wanting to do a load of customisation. It just works great out the box (but probably has less wiggle room to "make your own")
https://zellij.dev/