Terminals and shells on Fedora 45: Ptyxis plus bash, with tmux already installed

The terminal stack on Fedora 45 Workstation is not what most people remember. Measure it before configuring anything.

Ptyxis, the bash login shell and the preinstalled tmux, layered

What is installed

echo $SHELL
bash --version | head -1
rpm -q ptyxis gnome-terminal tmux zsh fish

/bin/bash
GNU bash, version 5.3.15(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu)
ptyxis-50.1-6.fc45.x86_64
package gnome-terminal is not installed
tmux-3.7c-1.fc45.x86_64
package zsh is not installed
package fish is not installed

Item	Actual state on F45 Workstation
Terminal emulator	Ptyxis 50.1
GNOME Terminal	not installed
Login shell	bash 5.3.15
tmux	preinstalled, 3.7c
zsh / fish	not installed

Other options in the repository

dnf list --available zsh fish kitty alacritty

Package	Version
`zsh`	5.9.2
`fish`	4.6.0
`kitty`	0.48.2
`alacritty`	0.17.0

Installing zsh does not change your shell:

sudo dnf install zsh
chsh -s /usr/bin/zsh

chsh changes the login shell, so it takes effect on your next login.

tmux: already there

tmux new -s work      # start a session named work
tmux ls               # list sessions
tmux attach -t work   # reattach
tmux kill-session -t work

The default prefix is Ctrl + b:

Action	Keys
split horizontally	`Ctrl+b` then `%`
split vertically	`Ctrl+b` then `"`
move between panes	`Ctrl+b` then an arrow key
detach	`Ctrl+b` then `d`

After detaching the session keeps running, which is why tmux survives dropped SSH connections.

A configuration that covers the basics

~/.tmux.conf:

set -g mouse on
set -g base-index 1
setw -g pane-base-index 1
set -g history-limit 50000
set -g escape-time 10

Reload it:

tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf

mouse on enables scrolling and mouse selection
base-index 1 numbers windows and panes from 1
escape-time 10 removes the Esc delay that annoys vim users

bash settings worth having

Append to ~/.bashrc:

HISTSIZE=100000
HISTFILESIZE=200000
HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth
shopt -s histappend

bind "set completion-ignore-case on"

alias ll='ls -alF'
alias gs='git status -sb'

shopt -s histappend matters: without it, several open terminals overwrite each other’s history.

Common traps

Symptom	Cause
`chsh` had no effect	you did not log in again
`Ctrl+b` does nothing inside tmux	the prefix is captured by a nested program; change `prefix` in `~/.tmux.conf`
Chinese renders as boxes	the terminal font has no CJK glyphs
processes die when the terminal closes	they were not running inside tmux
`gnome-terminal` not found	F45 ships Ptyxis; `dnf install gnome-terminal` if you want the old one

Chinese input — prerequisite for typing Chinese in a terminal
Editors — vim, neovim and graphical editors
SSH and keys — remote sessions pair well with tmux
Official: tmux wiki