---
name: "byobu-ctrl-a"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "byobu"
version: "5.133-1.1"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/byobu-ctrl-a"
---

# byobu-ctrl-a(1)

Configure Byobu's ctrl-a behavior

## NAME

byobu-ctrl-a - Configure Byobu's ctrl-a behavior

## DESCRIPTION

**byobu-ctrl-a** is an interactive program that allows a user to configure the behavior of the 'ctrl-a' key sequence.

Traditional GNU [**screen**(1)](/screen/1.md) uses ctrl-a as its escape character, while GNU [**emacs**(1)](/emacs/1.md) uses ctrl-a to move the cursor to the beginning of the line.  This conflict has caused unending amounts of grief among Screen, Byobu, and Emacs-mode users.

Thus, this program exists to allow each user to choose the behavior of ctrl-a in their local environment.

- *http://byobu.org*

  ## AUTHOR

This manpage and the utility were written by Dustin Kirkland \<kirkland@byobu.org\> for Ubuntu systems (but may be used by others).  Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document and the utility under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 3 published by the Free Software Foundation.

The complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in */usr/share/common-licenses/GPL* on Debian/Ubuntu systems, or in */usr/share/doc/fedora-release-\*/GPL* on Fedora systems, or on the web at *http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt*.