---
layout: post
comments: true
title: "Short quickstart on tmux & WeeChat for GUIless support"
category: [english]
tags: [english, irc, tmux]
redirect_from: /english/2016/03/09/weechat-tmux-quickstart.html
lang: en
sitemap: true
robots: noai
---

_Sometimes you don't have GUI when you need remote support, luckily you don't
need it even if you have only one device._

<!-- editorconfig-checker-disable -->
<!-- prettier-ignore-start -->

<!-- START doctoc generated TOC please keep comment here to allow auto update -->
<!-- DON'T EDIT THIS SECTION, INSTEAD RE-RUN doctoc TO UPDATE -->
<em lang="fi">Automaattinen sisällysluettelo</em> / <em lang="en">Automatically generated Table of Contents</em>

- [What is what?](#what-is-what)
- [Installing things](#installing-things)
- [tmux](#tmux)
- [WeeChat](#weechat)
- [pastebinit](#pastebinit)
- [Further reading](#further-reading)

<!-- END doctoc generated TOC please keep comment here to allow auto update -->

<!-- prettier-ignore-end -->
<!-- editorconfig-checker-enable -->

## What is what?

- Tmux is terminal multiplexer which allows you to have "multiple terminals" in
  one terminal. You can also detach it which means returning to the terminal
  where you ran tmux leaving tmux and everything there running and later return
  to it.
- WeeChat is popular text based IRC client.

## Installing things

_Note: WeeChat has multiple optional depedencies, but I am only listing the most
important ones (I will return to it later) unless they are all in one package._

- Arch & deriatives:
  - `sudo pacman --needed -S tmux weechat perl gpm pastebinit`
- Debian & deriatives:
  - `sudo apt-get install weechat-curses weechat-plugins gpm pastebinit`

## tmux

Just run `tmux` and you will find yourself in a new shell, but with tmux bar on
the bottom where you see open "windows".

Basic navigation:

\*Note: Tmux users ctrl + b by default instead of ctrl + a as it was developed
in screen. That can be changed with tmux.conf (check further reading after
WeeChat).

- Ctrl + b + c = new "window"
- Ctrl + b + number = move to "window" number
- Ctrl + b + x = kill "window"
- Ctrl + b + w = interactive "window" selection
- Ctrl + b + d = detach tmux (return with `tmux attach`)

## WeeChat

Time to finally go to IRC. Go to tmux first and there run `weechat` (or if your
distribution has ancient version of WeeChat, `weechat-curses`, but in that case
you should upgrade (if your distribution is
[Debian/Ubuntu/Raspbian, use this repository](https://weechat.org/download/debian/))).

WeeChat welcomes you and suggests you to read at least the quickstart guide and
recommends reading user's guide too, but in this case we can skip those.

First we must connect to the network where the support channel of our
distribution is.

1. Add the network to WeeChat.
   - liberachat: `/server add liberachat irc.libera.chat/6697 -ssl -autoconnect`
2. Connect there.
   - `/connect liberachat`
3. Join the channel of your distribution.
   - `/join #distribution`
     - you can also join multiple channels at once by separating them by commas
       e.g. `/join #channel,#channel2`.

You might want to have friendly channel listing and be able to click the
channels with mouse? That is why you installed perl and gpm (you might need to
`sudo systemctl start gpm` or whatever init system you use).

1. `/script install buffers.pl`
2. `/mouse enable`

Now you should see bar with the core buffer (`weechat`), server buffers merged
to it (`liberachat`) and `#distribution`. If mouse doesn't work, you can
`/buffer X` where X is the number to move. For moving between merged buffers
move to the buffer and press Ctrl + x.

And the last thing, if you need to see just plain lines without sidebars or
anything, press `alt + l` (`alt` can be replaced with `esc`).

## pastebinit

You are often wanted to pastebin something which can be difficult without GUI.
Luckily there is pastebinit which you can use instead of typing everyting by
hand.

Usage:

- `pastebinit file.txt` to pastebin the content of `file.txt`
- `dmesg | pastebinit` to pastebin output of `dmesg`

Pastebinit replies by givig you address to the paste which you can then give to
IRC.

Alternatives to pastebinit with some pastebins:

- [ix.io](http://ix.io/): `command | curl -F 'f:1=<-' ix.io`
- [sprunge.us](http://sprunge.us/):
  `command | curl -F 'sprunge=<-' http://sprunge.us`

These also answer by giving you link to the paste.

## Further reading

- tmux
  - [my ~/.tmux/tmux.conf](https://github.com/Mikaela/shell-things/blob/master/conf/tmux.conf)
  - Hawk Host Blog _which was very helpful to me when I started using tmux._
    - [TMUX – The Terminal Multiplexer (Part 1)](https://blog.hawkhost.com/2010/06/28/tmux-the-terminal-multiplexer/)
    - [TMUX – The Terminal Multiplexer (Part 2)](https://blog.hawkhost.com/2010/07/02/tmux-%E2%80%93-the-terminal-multiplexer-part-2/)
  - `man tmux`
- WeeChat
  - [WeeChat documentation index (multiple languages](https://weechat.org/doc/)
    - [Quick Start guide](https://weechat.org/files/doc/stable/weechat_quickstart.en.html)
    - [User's guide](https://weechat.org/files/doc/stable/weechat_user.en.html)
    - [FAQ](https://weechat.org/files/doc/weechat_faq.en.html)
  - [My IRC page](https://mikaela.info/irc/)
    - At the time of writing there are two posts about WeeChat.
- pastebinit
  - [pastebinit homepage](https://www.stgraber.org/category/pastebinit/)
  - `man pastebinit`