Steps to install tmux in Cygwin

While these steps probably still work, they are no longer necessary because tmux can now be installed through the Cygwin setup program like other tools.

  1. Install required Cygwin packages
    1. run Cygwin setup.exe
    2. install these packages that are not installed by default:
      automake, gcc, git, make, and pkg-config
  2. Install libevent
    1. browse http://libevent.org
    2. download libevent-2.0.21-stable.tar.gz
    3. open a cygwin terminal
    4. cd to directory containing downloaded file
    5. tar zxf libevent-2.0.21-stable.tar.gz
    6. cd libevent-2.0.21-stable
    7. ./configure --prefix=/usr
    8. make && make install
  3. Install ncurses
    1. browse http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses
    2. download ncurses-5.9.tar.gz
    3. open a cygwin terminal
    4. cd to directory containing downloaded file
    5. tar zxf ncurses-5.9.tar.gz
    6. cd ncurses-5.9
    7. ./configure --prefix=/usr
    8. make && make install
  4. Install tmux
    1. open a cygwin terminal
    2. git clone http://git.code.sf.net/p/tmux/tmux-code tmux-tmux-code
    3. cd tmux-tmux-code
    4. ./autogen.sh (will see many warnings; if it complains about \r not found, convert autogen.sh to use Unix line endings with mv autogen.sh temp.sh; dos2unix -o autogen.sh temp.sh)
    5. CFLAGS="-I/usr/include/ncurses" ./configure --prefix=/usr
    6. make && make install
  5. Configure Cygwin and tmux
    1. to use the Solarized color scheme, see here.
    2. to manually adjust colors, fonts, cursor shape, and more right-click the Cygwin title bar and select "Options...".
    3. create a .tmux.conf file include at least this line so the mouse and arrow keys can be used to switch panes:
      set -sg escape-time 250
    4. for more information about tmux configuration, see here.
  6. run tmux
    1. open a cygwin terminal using mintty (the shortcut that opens the terminal should run C:\cygwin\bin\mintty.exe)
    2. tmux