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Midnight Commander for Linux, Who Knew?
Author: Human X | Monday December 09, 2002
Midnight Commander or some may know it as 'mc' from the console, is a popular, yet equally unknown file manager for Unix / Linux. How does one get by with out it?
Midnight Commander is an open source file manager for Linux which runs in text mode from the console or in graphical mode under X. This article is mainly about the console mode.
I have been using Midnight Commander for as long as I have been using Unix/Linux which off and on has been about 8 years. Midnight Commander offers you everything you could possible need to maintain your files as well as offers a great text editor which supports HTML. When I am logged into the shell, you can believe Midnight Commander is the interface.
What can Midnight Commander do? The list is long but I will highlight some of the more important aspects. For file control you can set security on files, create symlinks, copy/move/delete, tag files, make ftp connections (which appear as the local file system) and edit text files. The control is in a menu system which is easy to use and is activated by your function keys (if your terminal is set correctly.)
Two displays exist, one on the right and one on the left, either of which may contain a file structure for which you would like to modify. Midnight Commander is stable, fast and very easy to use. If you are a newbie or an oldie, give Midnight Commander a try and save your fingers!
See if your distribution is running Midnight Commander by typing 'mc' from the command line. If your function keys do not work, then you will need to configure your shell for this. Other wise, you can replace the function key by using + to open your menus, where is the letter or number on your keyboard which the MAN PAGE will explain to you to activate a function. Type 'man mc' at the console for more information.
Author
HumanX
LinuxDig.Com
2002
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