How do you bypass or skip the intro message when starting screen?

Question

When I start screen, I get a message giving the version, copyright, and bug-reporting email address. I don't want to see this every time I start screen. Searching the man page didn't seem to result in a solution, and I am hoping that the experts here know a way to bypass this info page.

score 62 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 02 '23 at 16:16

62

There's a setting for that:

# Don't display the copyright page
  startup_message off           # default: on

You can set that system-wide (in /etc/screenrc) or only for your account (in ~/.screenrc). Shortcut commands:

# Skipping the startup message for your account.
echo 'startup_message off' >> ~/.screenrc
Skipping the startup message for all accounts.
sudo bash -c "echo 'startup_message off' >> /etc/screenrc"

edited Aug 02 '23 at 16:16

jfg956

6,336

answered Mar 08 '12 at 18:49

Mat

52,586

14

For future me: echo 'startup_message off' >> ~/.screenrc – saidi Jul 01 '16 at 18:43
3

Or help your brothers on the server as well: sudo bash -c "echo 'startup_message off' >> /etc/screenrc" (turns it off for all users rather than for yourself only) – Luc Jul 02 '17 at 18:49
2

@Luc That depends; your brothers and sisters might find the welcome page useful, so it might not necessarily be a great idea to edit it system-wide. "It depends". – Per Lundberg Nov 22 '18 at 13:29
BTW, that setting is in the GNU Screen User Reference Manual, in the Command Summary section (https://www.gnu.org/software/screen/manual/screen.html#Command-Summary) – Aleksey Tsalolikhin Aug 20 '20 at 16:45

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 16 '21 at 11:51

4

screen -q

also works for me, if you don't want to touch files.

answered Jan 16 '21 at 11:51

anon

141

I think this answer is better than the accepted one. – jfg956 Apr 08 '23 at 16:56
-q says: Suppress printing of error messages. In combination with -ls the exit value is as follows: 9 indicates a directory without sessions. 10 indicates a directory with running but not attachable sessions. 11 (or more) indicates 1 (or more) usable sessions. In combination with -r the exit value is as follows: 10 indicates that there is no session to resume. 12 (or more) indicates that there are 2 (or more) sessions to resume and you should specify which one to choose. In all other cases -q has no effect. – djdomi Jan 23 '24 at 17:57

How do you bypass or skip the intro message when starting screen?

2 Answers2

Skipping the startup message for all accounts.