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

# byobu-select-backend(1)

select your default Byobu backend window manager

## NAME

byobu-select-backend - select your default Byobu backend window manager

## SYNOPSIS

**byobu-select-backend** \[screen\|tmux\]

## DESCRIPTION

**byobu-select-backend** is an application that lists the available Byobu backends and allows you to select your default.

You can select one of either [**screen**(1)](/screen/1.md) or [**tmux**(1)](/tmux/1.md) on the command line, or giving no command line parameters, the utility will run interactively.

This utility will only affect which backend is used by default when simply running, [**byobu**(1)](/byobu/1.md).  Note that at any time, you can force the backend of a particular session by running the helpers, [**byobu-screen**(1)](/byobu-screen/1.md) or [**byobu-tmux**(1)](/byobu-tmux/1.md).

## FILES

*~/.byobu/backend*

## SEE ALSO

- [**byobu**(1)](/byobu/1.md), [**byobu-screen**(1)](/byobu-screen/1.md), [**byobu-tmux**(1)](/byobu-tmux/1.md), [**screen**(1)](/screen/1.md), [**tmux**(1)](/tmux/1.md)

  - *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*.