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The Linux Tools Windows Never Had — Until Now (tmux + htop + Wireshark in PowerShell)

#rust #windows #terminal #productivity

The Pain Every Windows Developer Knows

You just switched to Windows (or you've always been here), and you miss three things:

  1. tmux — Split your terminal, manage sessions, detach and reattach
  2. htop — A beautiful, keyboard-driven process monitor
  3. Network visibility — Something like Wireshark but in your terminal

The standard answers are always the same: "Just use WSL", "Install Cygwin", "Use Windows Terminal tabs".

But here's the thing — you shouldn't need a Linux subsystem just to split your terminal. You shouldn't need Npcap just to see your network connections. And Task Manager is... well, Task Manager.

Meet the PS Suite

Three tools. All Rust. All single-binary. All zero-dependency. All Windows-native.

1. psmux — tmux for Windows 

cargo install psmux
tmux  # Yes, this Just Works™ on Windows now
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psmux is a full, tmux-compatible terminal multiplexer built for Windows. Not a wrapper. Not through WSL. Native.

  • Same keybindings as tmux (Ctrl+b prefix, % split, " split, etc.)
  • Session detach/reattach that survives terminal closes
  • .tmux.conf compatible — your existing config mostly just works
  • The tmux command itself works — zero muscle-memory retraining 
# Your existing habits transfer 1:1
tmux new-session -s work
tmux split-window -h
tmux attach -t work
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174 stars on GitHub — people are noticing.

🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/marlocarlo/psmux

2. pstop — htop for Windows 

cargo install pstop
htop  # Yes, on Windows.
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pstop doesn't just look like htop — it is htop for Windows:

  • Per-core CPU bars, color-coded by user/system/virtual
  • Process tree view with ├─ connectors (press F5)
  • F2 setup menu with 7 color schemes, column customization
  • Three tab views: Main / I/O / Net
  • Full mouse support — click, scroll, resize
  • Kill processes, change priority, set CPU affinity
  • Persistent config — your settings survive restarts

The best part? It installs both pstop AND htop commands. You can literally type htop on Windows.

🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/marlocarlo/pstop

3. psnet — Network Monitor (Wireshark-style, in Your Terminal) 

cargo install psnet
psnet  # Run as Admin for full features
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psnet gives you real-time network visibility without installing anything:

  • Live speed graphs — Unicode sparklines for download/upload
  • DNS-resolved connections — see github.com not 140.82.121.4
  • Traffic event log — watch connections OPEN/CLOSE in real-time (like Wireshark)
  • Wire preview — actual packet payloads (HTTP headers, JSON responses)
  • Zero dependencies — no Npcap, no WinPcap, uses Windows built-in APIs

🔗 GitHub: https://github.com/marlocarlo/psnet

Why Native Matters

Here's the real cost of "just use WSL":

WSL Cost Native (PS Suite) Benefit
~2GB disk for WSL distro ~3MB total for all three tools
Slow Windows filesystem access Native Windows paths, full speed
Path translation (/mnt/c/...) Normal C:\ paths
Port forwarding hassles Direct access
Extra memory for VM Zero overhead
Can't use Windows tools in tmux panes PowerShell, cmd, Windows tools all work
Two systems to maintain/update One system

Install All Three in One Command 

cargo install psmux pstop psnet
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Don't have Rust? Install it in 30 seconds:

winget install --id Rustlang.Rustup
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My Daily Workflow 

# Morning: start or reattach my session
tmux attach -t work || tmux new-session -s work

# Window 1: code/build/test (shell)
# Window 2: htop (system monitoring)
# Window 3: psnet (network monitoring)

# Switch with Ctrl+b 1/2/3
# End of day: Ctrl+b d (detach)
# Everything persists. Back tomorrow.
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Try Them Out

All three are MIT-licensed, open source, and actively maintained:

If you find them useful, a ⭐ on GitHub goes a long way.

What Linux tools do you wish worked natively on Windows? Drop a comment below!

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