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Midnight Commander Development Revived

richlv writes "Popular Unix console file manager Midnight Commander has experienced a stall for the last few years. Most distributions (including the conservative Slackware) shipped patched packages or snapshots. Despite that, everybody had a favorite bug or two — either inability to specify ssh connection port, or problems with interrupted FTP sessions. Or maybe copying of larger datasets. Or maybe the infamous 'shell is still active' message, which often brought unexpected changes of current directory with it. Whatever it was, we either cursed it every time, or learned to live with it. It seems that finally something many were waiting for has happened — there's some activity on mc development. Check out the new homepage, and let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy."

304 comments

  1. "let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy." by Reality+Master+201 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes, and let's welcome them back by taking down their webserver.

    Nice job.

  2. Re:Red title? by DrData99 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    'cuz you could have had a first post...

  3. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by dotancohen · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yes, and let's welcome them back by taking down their webserver.

    Nice job.

    Seriously, three comments and the server's already 500ing?!? I had to get Winnertz Patrick's phone number from the whois information and call him to ask about the new MC.

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  4. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Shakrai · · Score: 2

    Couldn't have been a very beefy webserver if the subscriber preview was enough to knock it offline. Insert lame and predictable jokes here.

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  5. window maker ??? by C0vardeAn0nim0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm still waiting for a restart on wmaker's development. anyone have any news about it ?

    --
    What ? Me, worry ?
    1. Re:window maker ??? by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

      Why? What further development does it need?

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    2. Re:window maker ??? by zorn169 · · Score: 1

      I check up on window maker once or twice a year. There was actually recent activity on the mailing lists the last I checked. Not a lot of traffic, but a lot more than there had been.

    3. Re:window maker ??? by vigilology · · Score: 1

      From the homepage:

      We are currently working on reimplementing the site in a more modern, safe fashion, while at the same time restoring all services required for development and communication. With that said, we are working very hard to revitalize Window Maker's presence on X Window (and perhaps beyond) desktops. With this new focus, we can now truly assert that Window Maker will be resuming active development very soon.

      That was seven months ago.

    4. Re:window maker ??? by tweek · · Score: 1

      Sigh. I miss the old days of wmaker discussion with Trae and the gang. I wonder if my old themes are still out there?

      EDIT: Well shit!
      http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/drew/
      http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/pimp_/
      http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/drewbw_lusis/
      http://themes.freshmeat.net/projects/dystopia/

      God I feel old.

      --
      "Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
    5. Re:window maker ??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes please more new wmaker!!!

    6. Re:window maker ??? by houghi · · Score: 1

      Many applets need to be re-written as they do not compile well. New development will hopefully lead to new applets.

      Either that or get some of the functionality of Windowmaker into XFCE, like the ease of changing the settings for each program individually.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    7. Re:window maker ??? by g253 · · Score: 1

      I couldn't agree more. Part of what I loved when I first tried linux about ten years ago was the diversity of window managers and how each provided a very different feel, different paradigms. WMaker was my favorite for its looks, because it was very fast, because it had a convenient mount/unmount tool, because of the detachable menus... Just the general behavior of it was awesome.

      KDE, Gnome and Xfce are too much alike in many ways (even though there are lots of differences, the approach to the desktop & windows metaphor is too similar). It would be really nice if wmaker could be updated (a bit of eye candy, better configuration tools...) while keeping what makes it so unique.

    8. Re:window maker ??? by C0vardeAn0nim0 · · Score: 1

      bug fixes and a few new features, like:

      - when I run KDE 4 apps on window maker, the app supplied icon shows as a black and white bitmap, for instance.

      - the addition of a notification area (AKA, system tray) to the dock would be nice too.

      - ability to work on desktops that spans multiple monitors, so i can plug my notebook on my TV and move a media player to the TV screen instead of it moving to another virtual desktop once the mouse hits the border of the notebook's screen.

      --
      What ? Me, worry ?
    9. Re:window maker ??? by C0vardeAn0nim0 · · Score: 1

      after I posted, I checked the site, and they seem to have a mercurial up and running with a bug fix tagged late december. so it seems to be picking up speed.

      i'm sooooo happy !!!

      --
      What ? Me, worry ?
    10. Re:window maker ??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It HAS restarted. Check windowmaker.info and the mailing lists.

      -GSB

  6. great for patch work by nevets · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I love mc!

    I use it all the time for patch management. One little tidbit that most people do not know about mc is that you can cd into a patch. Edit the diffs in the patch, and copy a diff from one patch to another patch file, just like copying or moving a file.

    --
    Steven Rostedt
    -- Nevermind
    1. Re:great for patch work by doti · · Score: 1

      I'm a XTreeGold orfan, but I recently came across vifm, and I'm loving it.

      --
      factor 966971: 966971
    2. Re:great for patch work by obi · · Score: 1

      wow - I've been using nc/mc since forever, but I'm still discovering cool features.

      thanks

    3. Re:great for patch work by DoctorPepper · · Score: 1

      I don't generally use any kind of file manager from the console, preferring mainly the standard Unix/Linux utilities. That said, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Norton Commander (from my DOS days), and Midnight Commander from my Linux days. The one thing I always wished mc had was vi key bindings.

      You sir (or madam), get my everlasting admiration for pointing out vifm!

      --

      No matter where you go... there you are.
  7. Norton is going to be pissed... by Hoplite3 · · Score: 1

    when he learns someone his cloning his file manager.

    I'm interested to hear from MC users the advantages of MC over say konqueror with frames and fish to do remote file management.

    --
    Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
    1. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm interested to hear from MC users the advantages of MC over say konqueror with frames and fish to do remote file management.

      How about not needing an X-Windows environment?

    2. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by PalmKiller · · Score: 1

      He still alive? I thought he sold it all the Symantec anyway, including rights to use his name. Oh yea I remember now he married Gwen Adams after his divorce from Eileen Harris, further proof of the old saying that once you go black you never go back.

    3. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm interested to hear from MC users the advantages of MC over say konqueror with frames and fish to do remote file management.

      How about doing things 10 times faster?

    4. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by Richard+Steiner · · Score: 2, Informative

      How do I use konqueror with frames and fish on my web tablet? :-)

      MC is self-contained, relatively easy to install, fast, and works with vanilla ssh. Not sure what frames and fish are (links?), but I'd be surprised if they were as easy to install for a non-root user (as I often am).

      --
      Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
      The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
    5. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by Amazing+Quantum+Man · · Score: 1

      I thought he sold it all the Symantec anyway, including rights to use his name

      And I'm sure he's considering suing them for defamation of character.

      --
      Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
    6. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by Hatta · · Score: 2, Informative

      Frames are just that, frames. Like in a web browser, but instead for your file browser. Pretty simple. MC has 2 frames, konquorer can have as many frames as you like.

      FiSH is a Filesystem over SsH. Put fish://user@host/path/ in your konqueror address bar and you can browse a remote filesystem just as if it were local. It all works out of the box too, really nice.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    7. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by julian67 · · Score: 1

      Your assumption being that the headless/non X capable machine is administered from a machine running X. Another assumption is that the administrator using the assumed-to-be-existing computer running KDE *shudder* actually wants to use Konqueror as opposed to a terminal emulator and screen. For anyone who can remember 5 keyboard combos there are reasons to prefer a terminal emulator and screen. How about if you need to be logged into and working on several remote machines....screen or Konqueror? The keyboard is not just a receptacle for toast crumbs and suspicious looking hairs (though it's good for that too).

    8. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FiSH is a Filesystem over SsH.

      Actually, the acronym FISH stands for "FIles tranfered over SHell protocol". And guess what? Midnight Commander does that too in addition to doing ftpfs.

    9. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 1

      Fish means that you can do file movement over ssh (meaning you dont need anything more than ssh running on the server)
      Frames are well frames, as in its a filemanager that has a left/right or top/bottom divide, much like mc, so you can drag files from one side to the other.

      I do think its not really fair to compare GUI tools to CLI tools as konqueror has the obvious disadvantages of being a gui tool, while i can also get an uninitiated friend to drag the music he wants to a second frame, while this is unlikely in mc or using any CLI tool. I'm a bit young for mc, but if it set the bar as far as CLI file managers go, and im fairly sure it did, why did nobody fork/clone it when it died? (i know redhat & novell have been patching it but its surprising nobody set up "new commander" or something like that to fix the blatant bugs)

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
    10. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Konqueror supports all the keystrokes that are in MC?

      meta-control-? :: search for files by regexp contents
      plus/minus :: mark files
      f5/f6 :: copy move
      shift-f5/shift-f6 :: local copy move
      f3/f4 :: view edit
      shift-f4 :: create new file and open in edit
      meta-enter :: paste current filename into command line

      and the tricky one

      ctrl-o :: see results of last command execution

      Windows world has Total Commander and FAR.
      Linux has only MC, and nothing else (all other commander clones lack so many features that they are not worth looking into)

    11. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by jgrahn · · Score: 1

      Fish means that you can do file movement over ssh (meaning you dont need anything more than ssh running on the server)

      Like scp(1) or rsync(1), then? Scp comes with any sensible ssh installation, and rsync is very widely used.

    12. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by bannerman · · Score: 1

      I'm glad somebody else remembers Norton Commander.

      --
      I keep forgetting my place. Jesus is for losers. Why do I still play to the crowd?
    13. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linux has other solutions; they just aren't commander clones.

      For example, Emacs. It can run in a terminal, just like mc, but it also has arbitrary frames, just like Konqueror. And, yes, its file manager (dired) has all the same features as mc.

      meta-control-? -> % g
      plus/minus -> m/u
      f5/f6 -> C/R
      shift-f5/shift-f6 -> C/R
      f3/f4 -> v/
      shift-f4 -> C-x C-f
      meta-enter -> no exact equivalent, but ! to run a command line on marked files, or just use shell mode

      ctrl-o -> look in the "shell command output" buffer

    14. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by ChienAndalu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      1. Pops up faster
      2. Being able to use it over a tty console
      3. Hotkeys
      4. If you want to compare it to a KDE app, at least pick Krusader
      5. Profit

    15. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by RiotingPacifist · · Score: 1

      Pretty much but without the need for anything other than ssh & unix commands (with the optional extention of a specific implementation). Basically if you read the link youll see its a technology originally developed by mc to make the gui interactions with remote servers easier. Its also a protocol for remote file management as compared to just remote file copying, so a comparision to a single tool is like saying that mc is just the same as cp or mv, which in turn are just the same as dd,

      --
      IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
    16. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by Atilla · · Score: 2

      Norton Commander was great until it hit ver. 5, when it became bloatware. It felt sluggish and ate a ton of memory, which was still pretty important then (especially for those that still sported 640K-1M of RAM)... Volkov Commander became a great substitute, since it was written in assembly and the executable was quite a bit less than 100K in size (comparing to ~300K or so of NC executable).. It was so common in some places (like Russia) that people thought there was something wrong with a PC if NC or VC wasn't installed.

      *sigh*... The screen covered up by two big blue panels is forever etched onto my retinas... :-)

      --
      --- sig moved for great justice.
    17. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by bruunb · · Score: 1

      You don't need X, all you need is a terminal.

      MC does not take up the 1.4 Mb + shared libs + Gnome or N Mb + shared libs + KDE , which by the way only works if you have X also.

      The 100% customizable build-in menu at the touch of a finger (F2) and of course file-extension feature works great - better than KDE or Gnomes version of the file-extension association lists... that don't work in all programs anyway.7

      And it is almost as fast and versatile as the CLI. "Pure" CLI is still faster if you know the way around you keyboard...

      And most of all no stupid mouse you have to reach out for when you want to view(F2)/edit(F3), copy(F5) or move(F6) a file (+ many more), the only thing you have to do is to reach an inch or a bit more depending on your keyboard and you got your action. When you do "system administration" work at the terminal then the mouse is not really an option.
      If you don't believe me then give it a few weeks of testing. All there is to it, that goes for any and all GUI applications, is _not_ to use the mouse if there is a keyboard shortcut, including getting to menu items etc. It won't take you long to figure out that you loose time with the mouse, in just about any thing that is not drawing or moving windows around your desktop.
      GUI = pretty pictures and tennis elbow, CLI = the fastest (also the choice that you need the most knowledge about GNU utilities to use), MC = CLI made easy and you get "free" visualisation of the filesystem.

      If you aren't used to the CLI or the approx. 1000 "default" GNU utilities that comes with a default GNU/*nix installation that enables you to do just about anything you can thing of, excluding what your girlfriend can do, if you have one, then MC is the best way to get things done, fast and easy.

      And of course, nostalgia from the "good" old DOS days where Norton Commander and DOS Navigator (some old MIT/russian NC clone that is much better than both NC and any NC clone I've run across, including MC).

      --
      Vegetarians eat Vegetables, Humanitarians frighten me...
    18. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      ... and working over a plain ssh connection with minimum hassle?

      My (FreeBSD-based) web hosting provider has it in the shell, and I highly appreciate that.

    19. Re:Norton is going to be pissed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you ever heard about Russian's "Connect' 'cn' FAR like file manager? It was very-very feature rich. It was running over DOS and has long filename support many years before FAR has been started

      Total Commander on windows has less usable feature then it had.

      1. Copy panel (for me it had the most important features)
      - has a filter option (recursive copy all files in directory tree but filter can be setted)
      - advanced filter (eg filedate time; size etc)
                    - could be stored or restored from file
      - option button-> new popup where you can set several on fly option for this copy only
              - check free disk space berfore copy
              - copy progress statistics (files copyed; files total; files remaining; estimated time...etc)

      2. Commander wide cliboard manager (e.g. select filenames with path from file and when past on the commander it will select all files for more operations...)

      3. Multiple Windows with different directories or else (eg. you run in one shell e.g 3times mc and 2 times mcedit and ctrl+tab to switch between them)

      4. for fun reverse copy bar (if you copy from right to left then the progress bar will go as well from right to left)

      5. Drag&Drop support with mouse (e.g with gpm)

      6. Colored filenames/dirs (user defined)

      7. View 'F3' on directory show the usage of the dir

      8. select files based on advanced filter (same as on copy)

      lots of personalisable settings:
              -space select/unselect item and dir, on dir it calculates the usage of the dir
              - save directory selection (you can switch dirs without loosing the selection of selected files)
              - setting displayed time formats, separator
              - setting different colors for different operations (e.g different panel colour for the copy panel ..etc.)
              - built in ascii table; calendar; calculator; etc

  8. Re:Sweet by H0p313ss · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yeah! Let's post about some obscure piece of software so unused not even unemployed open sores "programmers" want to touch it.

    Congratulations, you have officially identified yourself as completely clueless.

    --
    XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
  9. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, um.

    Why?

    Why was it revived, or put another way, why did it die in the first place? Could it be because of one of the bugs you cited or the number of them or the fact that, well, why not just type 'cp' or 'mv' or whatever the frick problem this software was supposed to solve. In 1994.

  10. Amish by heson · · Score: 2, Funny

    Amish 2.0, now with computers but with the ui equivilient of a buggy.

    1. Re:Amish by Lobster+Quadrille · · Score: 1

      Nah, nothing says buggy like a windows-based file manager.

      --
      "The cup is in turn designed for holding hot or cold liquids, and has an open rim and closed base." --US Patent #5425497
  11. Re:bleh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    mc is great in a headless environment. I think a lot of *nix admins appreciate it. I know i do. Its great when your on a server with the minimum installed, and you need to copy stuff and the console is not cutting it ...

  12. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Funny

    Seriously, three comments and the server's already 500ing?!? I had to get Winnertz Patrick's phone number from the whois information and call him to ask about the new MC.

    So not only is their server going to be down, but now their Web admin's phone is going to be ringing off the hook!

    Way to go, dude.

  13. Mirror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I didn't get a 500, so here's a mirror:
    (not quite what I expected, to be honest ;-) )

    Traceback (most recent call last):
        File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/trac/web/api.py", line 339, in send_error
            'text/html')
        File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/trac/web/chrome.py", line 715, in render_template
            return stream.render(method, doctype=doctype)
        File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/genshi/core.py", line 179, in render
            return encode(generator, method=method, encoding=encoding, out=out)
        File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/genshi/output.py", line 60, in encode
            return _encode(u''.join(list(iterator)))
        File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/genshi/output.py", line 311, in __call__
            for kind, data, pos in stream:
        File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/genshi/output.py", line 753, in __call__
            for kind, data, pos in stream:
        File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/genshi/output.py", line 592, in __call__
            for kind, data, pos in stream:
        File "/var/lib/python-support/python2.5/genshi/output.py", line 707, in __call__
            text = mjoin(textbuf, escape_quotes=False)
    UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xfc in position 1640: ordinal not in range(128)

    1. Re:Mirror by dotancohen · · Score: 5, Funny

      My god, it's full of code!

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  14. The best piece of software since 4DOS. :-) by Richard+Steiner · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Midnight Commander is one of the tools that I could live without, but I sure wouldn't want to. I use it all over the place ... on the Solaris servers and my Windows XP workstation here at work, on my Linux, OS/2, and Windows boxes at home, on my Nokia 770 tablet, etc.

    It makes it easier to delete files and directory trees with certainty (and accuracy!), the built-in editor is good enough for modifying shell scripts and even making moderate code changes to more involved programs, its built-in FTP capability is invaluable when one has to flip a lot of files or directories between hosts, and its customizable menus and panelization capabilities can add some fairly powerful capabilities to even the most dedicated command-line user.

    I love my Midnight Commander! :-)

    --
    Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
    The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
  15. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    As opposed to a swarm of smelly teenagers lolwtfing at the latest trendy way to spell 'pwnage'?

  16. Re:bleh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The command line/textual environment lets us be more productive than using point and click. For example, if I was using Konqueror or Dolphin, to delete a directory I'd have to open it up, go to the directory where it is, click it, and delete it. In the command line I'd be able to cd /to/the/directory rmdir and *BOOM*. Way faster.

  17. Re:bleh. by larry+bagina · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What kind of minimum installation includes midnight commander but doesn't include cp?

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  18. Lengthy? by pondermaster · · Score: 1

    Not very lengthy, we slashdotted'em :)

  19. And I thought it finally safe... by pla · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...To mistype "mv".

    Seriously, I can't say much about the merits of Midnight Commander as an actual program, but for years I've not-so-silently cursed it for its choice of executable names.

    1. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by drooling-dog · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ...To mistype "mv".

      This is the first thing I thought of when I saw this article, and I had a bet with myself that someone else would mention it, too. There aren't many shell commands more common than "mv", and the 'c' key is sitting there right next to the 'v'. Yes, you can alias your way out of this, but I found it simpler and more satisfying to just "rm /usr/bin/mc".

    2. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, you can alias your way out of this, but I found it simpler and more satisfying to just "rm /usr/bin/mc".

      Um...or you could just remove the package properly. And complain to the idiot devs of your distro for installing such a niche package by default.

    3. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      I've had the same problem with metafont. The 'f' is even closer to the 'v' than the 'c' is. And the worst thing is, you can't even kill mf with ctrl-c. You have to ctrl-z out of it, then `kill -9 %1`.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    4. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by qmaqdk · · Score: 2, Funny

      ...To mistype "mv".

      Reminds me of the time I aliased emacs with a special .emacs for editing /etc files. The alias was em, as in:

      em /etc/dhcp/dhcpd.conf

      Turns out "e" is really close to "r" on the keyboard.

      --
      My UID is prime. Hah!
    5. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by jgrahn · · Score: 1

      I've had the same problem with metafont. The 'f' is even closer to the 'v' than the 'c' is. And the worst thing is, you can't even kill mf with ctrl-c. You have to ctrl-z out of it, then `kill -9 %1`.

      Sending SIGKILL around should be the last resort ... Ctrl-D appears to work as expected, although it leaves an annoying log file in the current directory. Thankfully, I've never accidentally invoked Metafont.

    6. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      As the last resort, it should always work. Is there a good reason for any program to ignore ctrl-c?

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    7. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by imbaczek · · Score: 1

      yeah, when it's sleeping in a blocking read(). well, maybe that's not a good reason.

    8. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by josmith42 · · Score: 1

      If you were typing in the Dvorak layout, you wouldn't have to worry! 'c' and 'v' are really far apart in Dvorak.

      :-)

    9. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by shird · · Score: 1

      Use ctrl-d to send a EOF to metafont, and it exits.

      --
      I.O.U One Sig.
    10. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by eggnoglatte · · Score: 1

      alias mc mv

      'nuff said.

    11. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      Since when is mc installed by default on Linux distros?

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    12. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by wik · · Score: 1

      The one more common typo that comes to mind--and the one alias that I do have to fix it up--is "dc" to "cd". The mind boggles.

      --
      / \
      \ / ASCII ribbon campaign for peace
      x
      / \
    13. Re:And I thought it finally safe... by harry666t · · Score: 1

      Hah! It seems I'm not the only one using such alias :)

      Luckily I always have "rm" aliased to "trash", which is a standards-compliant trash implementation for the CLI (I don't have the link anywhere around).

  20. Re:bleh. by sunking2 · · Score: 1

    No admin should touch it as it is an unreliabel PoS. I haven't used it in probably 10+ years, but I can remember it dropping things into never never land more often than I'd like to recall.

  21. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah! You'd think this site puts up "News for nerds. Stuff the matters"! Psh. We need to follow the latest pop culture music groups on here!

  22. Text displays in today's environment? by bogaboga · · Score: 1, Insightful

    As Midnight Commander is a text mode application. It can be used locally and/or remotely, on the console or under the X Window System.

    Do text apps still have a place in today's world? Heck, network speeds and capacities (read bandwidth) have improved a great deal. I would rather have these programmers focus their efforts on Krusader ? It seriously needs some love.

    1. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do text apps still have a place in today's world? That's like asking if we still need screw drivers when there is "The Flexible Shaft Ratcheting Screwdriver" (as sold on ThinkGeek, just below the comment I am commenting on when I was reading Slashdot).

    2. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by CompMD · · Score: 1

      Yes, text displays in today's environment. The vast majority of servers don't need to have a bunch of X applications on them. Its a waste of resources.

    3. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by ultrabot · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I would rather have these programmers focus their efforts on Krusader ? It seriously needs some love.

      Ah, again the myth that open source developers are a free workforce you can redirect between projects on your whim... It just doesn't go like that, people work on whatever happens to interest them at the time.

      (this comes from another Krusader user btw - by the look of their web page, they seem to be doing alright)

      --
      Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
    4. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by thermian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Do text apps still have a place in today's world?

      Not on the desktop, but there are large number of computer users who work on headless computers, and frankly don't want anything more than a console open with ssh.

      I just completed a four year ph.d, during which my *entire* research effort was conducted using a linux cluster to which I connected via putty or bash, depending on where I was.

      Yes I know, and so did my colleagues, that its possible with todays faster conection speed to run a gui over that connection, but why bother when you can already get so much done in a console window?

      I use GUI apps a lot, they have an important place in the world of modern computing, but so do CLI apps.

      --
      A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
    5. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by Sir_Kurt · · Score: 1

      Text mode apps are great because they fire up quickly, look and act the same on different platforms, can be highly functional and flexible, and use moderate resources. For all these reasons, they will use less of your time. So if your time is important to you, learn to use them.

      Kurt

    6. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by julian67 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      There's very much a place for console applications. If you ssh into a machine that has no graphics capability you'll have an awful lot of trouble running Krusader on it ;-) There are lots of great applications which use curses/ncurses to offer interfaces and facilities analogous to gui apps and there are also plenty of apparently low end machines out there on which running X and a desktop is too expensive, i.e. start x and watch everything else hang, but when run without X the same machines are perfectly suited to their tasks and have years of useful life ahead of them. I also have an amd64 PC with 2 GB RAM, nvidia GPU etc. MC is installed and gets used regularly on that as well. That says a lot for the capabilities of MC but also some not so favourable things about GTK file managers.... Anyway I'm pleased to see there are people interested in reviving development of MC.

    7. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and this is why there will never be a year of the linux desktop

    8. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by idontgno · · Score: 1

      Do text apps still have a place in today's world?

      I tried to reply to you in pictographs and hieroglyphs, but accursed slashcode forces me to use text.

      I would rather have these programmers focus their efforts on Krusader ? It seriously needs some love.

      So jump right in! Meanwhile, no programmers are being drafted against their will to work on one program over another.

      (This is a longstanding gripe of mine at the fringes of Free Software. "That developer shouldn't be wasting his time on <program x>; <program y> needs the attention more!" "Free Software" is not a monolithic corporate product with its own integrated master schedule with a list of prioritized deliverables. It's the aggregate of dozens of labors of love, and if Developer Joe decides he wants to spend time with mc rather than Krusader, who are you to say otherwise?)

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    9. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by feldicus · · Score: 0

      Hey, in the "Flexible Shaft Ratcheting Screwdriver's" defense, you can use it to drive a threaded, helical shaft via torque applied to a slotted protrusion after you're done using it to make steak fries, or whatever else the kids are eating these days.

      feldicus

    10. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by SaDan · · Score: 1

      Because every year is the year of the Linux server/cluster/router/toaster.

      The only reason I run a GUI on desktops is so I can open more terminals and use a web browser.

    11. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by flyingsquid · · Score: 1

      Wait a minute... Midnight Commander is a Unix console file manager? Dammit! I just figured that with an awesome sounding name like "Midnight Commander" it had to be some kind of a sweet new action game, and so I pre-ordered a copy for my XBox.

    12. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by V!NCENT · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There is a Linux desktop and it is more ready than Windows. There, however, will never be a year of avarage joe knowing what he is doing with a desktop.

      --
      Here be signatures
    13. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by V!NCENT · · Score: 1

      Depending on your age and the country that you live in; don't you need to type and print letters, download media and file tax reports with GUI apps?

      --
      Here be signatures
    14. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by jedidiah · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > and this is why there will never be a year of the linux desktop

      Yes... because we can't or won't pull an Office 2007 whereby everyone has
      their nice comfortable and old tools forcibly ripped away from them just
      so they can be forced to use the flavor of the month.

      Forget about "consistency" between apps. How about consistency over time.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    15. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by dbcad7 · · Score: 1

      If you made a mistake in editing say your xorg.conf file, and upon reboot X will not restart.. mc is THE easiest editor to use.. bar none.. and it is easy to use for copying, renaming, moving files etc.. especially for those who don't often use the command line. It was standard to include it in all distros by default, and that was a good thing,. sadly not so much now .. If whatever distro I get doesn't have it, I always make sure I download it so it's there for emergencies.

      --
      waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
    16. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      It's only (easily) available on the PS3. :-) For a game it has primitive graphics, it looks like a roguelike with a lot of monsters in giant rooms, and it requires a keyboard.

    17. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      I've not used mc for very much, but I just loaded it up and edited one of my fluxbox configuration files with it and it was most certainly easy to do the basics with it, though I was expecting the built in editor to be vim-like for some reason.

    18. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by raddan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I highly suggest reading The Art of UNIX Programming to see why the CLI is still [highly] relevant, even for desktop users. Granted, I am probably in the minority, but my job would be significantly harder if I weren't able to just string long chains of arbitrary commands together. I'd probably spend a lot more time programming and a lot less time working. xargs is a fucking godsend, let me tell you.

    19. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by sdhoigt · · Score: 1

      > Not on the desktop, but there are large number of computer users who work on headless computers, and frankly don't want anything more than a console open with ssh.

      I run X and still prefer MC; I have for years.

      I've tried switching to Konqueror/Krusader/Thunar/etc., but I always go back to MC.

      With MC's app bindings, there's really nothing you can't do w/it. And it's just so much faster to navigate around and get shit done.

      Good luck MC devs!

    20. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by extrasolar · · Score: 1

      Yes I know, and so did my colleagues, that its possible with todays faster conection speed to run a gui over that connection, but why bother when you can already get so much done in a console window?

      Well, here's the problem, as I see it. The command line is an expressive interface, but largely limited to character-cell based interfaces. I just think we need to get out of that mode of thought. If you can take the command line out of simple character cells, that would make it even *more* expressive.

      For instance, I love using maxima, but it's sad that its limited to a character cell interface. You can run imaxima or wxmaxima, which gives you a full, typeset interface, the best of both worlds, but it's still strange that these are just considered "additions" to the core program, and not a part of the program itself.

      It's just silly that we have this unwritten requirement that every program must be usable in a character cell interface, it's like we want everything to be backwards compatible with pre-X interfaces. Why? On modern computing systems, why? You act like it's extra effort to support a graphical interface (not necessarily a WIMP interface), when on modern systems it really isn't.

    21. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      I realize it's mostly for file management, but I've seen others mention that it has a file editor.

      So is it easier than pico? Personally, I can't *stand* pico (and wouldn't use pine/alpine if I couldn't turn off pico and a bunch of other beginning-user-friendly things in it).. but it is pretty dang easy to use.

    22. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by dbcad7 · · Score: 1

      The editor in mc, is much like the dos editor from windows.. yeah it's pretty easy. Probably not a good programming editor, but very good for quick edits of config files.

      --
      waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
    23. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      Do text apps still have a place in today's world? Heck, network speeds and capacities (read bandwidth) have improved a great deal. I would rather have these programmers focus their efforts on Krusader ? It seriously needs some love.

      It's a lot easier to log what I do at the command line then what I do in a GUI. Which comes in handy 6-18 months down the road when I'm trying to remember what the heck I did to configure XYZ. And a 132x50 display area for a console is nice and roomy.

      In fact, lack of logging is one of the things I dislike about Windows now. I would have to take copious screenshots in order to keep track.

      (We also use FSVS with a SVN storage repository to keep track of changes. The log files are more for my convenience.)

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    24. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by bruunb · · Score: 1

      Don't take this the wrong way, but I laughed out loud when I read you comment, I feel the same way about the MC editor (and any other for that matter :w appears often when I'm in a GUI program). CLI + VI(M) and you have all you need. Gnome/KDE is only for having mulitple terminals open on one screen - great for log-watching when developing.

      --
      Vegetarians eat Vegetables, Humanitarians frighten me...
    25. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      I feel the same way about the MC editor (and any other for that matter :w appears often when I'm in a GUI program).

      You can probably guess what happened when I used mc's editor. I moved the cursor where I wanted to edit and hit "i". And there it appeared, an "i", taunting me. Worse was some time back when I was using Notepad on Vista. I had finished editing and wanted to save and quit, and absentmindedly hit Esc and then did "ZZ", and wondered why it didn't save and quit and then noticed that "ZZ" sitting there. And I constantly try to middle click paste on Windows it's always tripping me up. Happens at least once, every time I use Windows.

      I'm not a developer or admin so don't need to juggle a large number of terminal windows (and I don't use GNU screen) but I do use the mrxvt tabbed terminal.

    26. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by SaDan · · Score: 1

      Even in the USA, you don't HAVE to do any of what you just wrote with a computer.

      Pen a letter, or use a typewriter. Rent your media, or do pay-per-view over cable/dish. Do taxes by hand, and file via snail mail.

      Don't worry, we'll get to the point where you HAVE to use a computer for all of that. It's a ways out, though.

    27. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by bruunb · · Score: 1

      I never got that ZZ or :wq thing that I see a lot of coworkes use? I always use :w when I've made or finished a sentence and :x to quit and save. Rarely the :q! option. I think it comes from the old unstable network days at the dorm in the late '90... I must be getting old or something like that:x

      --
      Vegetarians eat Vegetables, Humanitarians frighten me...
    28. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by graibeard · · Score: 1

      [Esc] 9 -> Options -> Configuration -> [] use internal menu (under 'Other options')
      Do that and it will probably default to vi (vim) ie:- the system default editor

    29. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google "dual pane file manager shell" and see the many attempts to provide on windows the functionalilty that is easily available on unixes.

    30. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      Have you used the svn version of Krusader lately? I think it's better than ever. What "needs love?"

      But more importantly, a whole hell of a lot of what I love in Krusader came straight out of mc. I couldn't be more thrilled with this news.

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    31. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      I don't get it. What's why there will never be a year of the Linux desktop?

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    32. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by zombie_monkey · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I prefer CLI and ncurses apps, because they are designed for a keyboard interface. I have found console-based apps for all my needs, and the only thing I run most of the time I run a screen session in urxvt and forefox with vimperator, which also saves me form having to reach for a touchpad/mouse. This is of course doable also with ratpoison, xmonad, and others, but in GUI apps ease of control exclusively form the keyboard is not usually a big priority.

    33. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      It has syntax highlighting and a few other nifty features while being brain-dead simple.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    34. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by ciggieposeur · · Score: 1

      Well, here's the problem, as I see it. The command line is an expressive interface, but largely limited to character-cell based interfaces. I just think we need to get out of that mode of thought. If you can take the command line out of simple character cells, that would make it even *more* expressive.

      (Disclaimer: I wrote a console-based terminal emulator to bring BBS-era convenience to the Linux console. Works pretty well, and can be very convenient at times.)

      I think the issue is that the character-cell metaphor is a "good enough" interface for mouse-less work, especially with ncurses encapsulating 30 years of text terminals development. You can still add mouse and go (T)IMP too: see the OSS port of Turbo Vision. This metaphor also works over the simplest available two-way links ala ssh/telnet/serial port/etc. Once you break out of the character-cell metaphor, you've got the full X11 GUI that works over network too. The question is why would you seek any kind of intermediate ground when both metaphors already work OK?

      My personal opinion is that the next great interface revolution won't occur until either a) voice commands become the norm, or b) we can project a HUD-like screen over our real sight (total immersion / augmented reality). I suspect B will happen first, and it will probably come in a form like the Nintendo WII where multiple 3D pointers are used.

    35. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by value_added · · Score: 1

      Do text apps still have a place in today's world? Heck, network speeds and capacities (read bandwidth) have improved a great deal.

      You're probably seeing things from the point of A User and His Desktop, so I'll skip the installation, updates, maintenance, monitoring etc. tasks that are workaday experience for any sysadmin, or anyone working with more than one or two machines, and describe my own experiences from a similar point of view.

      I recently upgraded my home network to gigabit. The reasons for doing so were multiple, and I regret having waited so long do so. That said, my daily email, usenet, torrent, etc. activities are all done using text-based interfaces. My file management (naming, organising, sorting, archiving, burning of CDs and DVDs, etc.) is done using a text-based interface, as is routine maintenance (networking, backups, etc.), the usual writing and printing letters and documents. And finally, because my primary workstation isn't Windows, my "desktop" configuration is done using a text-based interface.

      Mind you, I do use a GUI browser for most websites, but your question could be rephrased as "Why are you opening all these windowed applications to perform tasks that could better be done using a simpler and typically more feature-filled approach that's already at your fingertips?"

      Text is the closest and most direct method of interfacing with your computer. That was true decades ago, and it's just as true today. If using a text-based approach requires too much thinking or learning, then by all means, click on that icon. By the time the program loads and you rummage around in menus to find what you want to do, I'll have already done it and moved on to something more interesting. Like reading the latest Slashdot story about Midnight Commander.

    36. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by V!NCENT · · Score: 1

      Interesting... In my country we are forced to do most things digitaly through the internet. We have a tax application made by the government with Windows, Mac and Linux versions.

      --
      Here be signatures
    37. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by MacTO · · Score: 1

      Ever try to share a 2 Mb/s connection with a town of 1200 people? Point is, not everyone in the world can have high speed because not everyone in the world has access to high speed. Even if you do have high speed, you may not be able to install an X server or VNC client on someone else's machine while travelling -- but chances are that you can still run PuTTY. I've heard of people running ssh clients on mobile devices, where bandwidth may be a wee bit expensive.

      And then there are the people who run mc because they just happen to prefer it.

    38. Re:Text displays in today's environment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would rather have these programmers focus their efforts on Krusader ?

      Check the respective git/svn repositories. As of last week there were 2 people actively working on MC. Plus two more on http://mc.redhat-club.org/ fork, currently being integrated in the mainline (Unicode bugfixes mostly).

      Krusader already has 4 active developers.

  23. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by dotancohen · · Score: 5, Funny

    So Lame and Predictable walk into this bar...

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  24. Re:bleh. by Richard+Steiner · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The cp command doesn't allow for the arbitrary point-and-shoot selection of files to copy, and it also doesn't have some of the more useful related functionality (e.g., directory comparison) that I use all the time in mc.

    It's an *addition* to the standard admin toolset, not a replacement. IMO.

    --
    Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
    The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
  25. Re:Sweet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it's source! not sores! know the difference!

    sores - the things you feel around you anus when you wipe.

    source - the code and files that make up a program.

    I ask you, how can you confuse these two things?

  26. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 1

    They're doing development on Midnight Commander...I doubt they thought they were going to need a ton of resources.

    Still, I'm glad to see 'em back. MC is a big help when you're working on the console.

    --
    ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  27. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 3, Funny

    Priceless. Dead as a doornail. *sigh* Still, it's nice to see MC being developed again. (Or not see in the case of what we've done to the server. See? This is why we can't have nice things!)

    MC is always my go to file manager in Linux. I've tried other graphical clients, and none cut it for ease of use and simplicity.

    All hail Midnight Commander's victorious return!

  28. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    God, is it any wonder why Digg is kicking Slashdot's butt?!

    I've spent quite a bit of time on Digg, and I can tell you that Digg is not a technology site. It's a social networking site where users share the latest and greatest information in whatever area suites their fancy. As Slashdot's tagline "News for Nerds" suggests, Slashdot is for nerds. Midnight Commander news is certainly nerdy and therefore on topic.

    Furthermore, the "Stuff that matters" part is intended to assure that Slashdot news won't be quite a banal as Digg's news. Digg users may care that user X just managed to get a four day old story to "pop", but the world outside of Digg's user-networks really doesn't care.

    So with all respect intended, your complaints are duly noted and ignored. Now get off my lawn, ya' darn kids!

  29. Re:bleh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    You must be a KDE-user. I use gnome, and nautilus isn't exactly useful for real work.

  30. Re:bleh. by Richard+Steiner · · Score: 2

    Any admin who judges current software based on dim memories of 10-year-old incarnations needs to get out a little and breathe the flowery air of fresh software development. :-)

    Seriously. I've been using it on multiple platforms for close to a decade now, and I'm not sure I can remember it misplacing anything. Without my accidentally telling it to, anyway... These computer thingies are so literal. :-) :-)

    --
    Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
    The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
  31. Re:bleh. by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 1

    I was using MC just two days ago for moving a bunch of files around. Sure you can use commandline stuff for a few files, but if you're working with a large number of files, like I was, MC was the easiest way to do it.

    I've yet to find a graphical file manager in Linux I actually like.

  32. Screenshots? by edmicman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Server is down...anyone have screenshots?

  33. Re:Sweet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I ask you, how can you confuse these two things?

    An open source developer once fucked him in the ass and gave him herpes, so now he automatically conflates sores with source?

  34. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not to mention "here's today's EPIC Obama pic" {PIC]

  35. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... Lame fell over and Predictable smiled.

  36. Magellan? by 644bd346996 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While we're resurrecting old text mode utilities, can we get a modern Magellan clone? None of the search front-ends to stuff like Spotlight or Beagle that I've tried come close to being as cool as Magellan was.

    By the way, does Magellan still work on Windows? The last time I tried was probably on XP SP1.

    1. Re:Magellan? by ears_d · · Score: 1

      I think I still have a couple of Magellan disks but I don't have a 3.5 floppy drive anymore.

    2. Re:Magellan? by Reziac · · Score: 1

      Dunno, but PowerDesk v5 is now free, you might try that. It has tons of features that I've barely looked at.

      For me, MC is as near to Buerg's LIST as I've found in linux -- my main use is rooting around the directory structure and viewing files' innards. I can't live without LIST .. it's the first util that goes on every DOS/WIN system I ever build!

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  37. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You neglected to mention that the signal-to-noise ratio on both sites is extremely low. Now, you can go lower (YouTube, GameFAQs, then 4chan), but given the userbase, I'm quite disappointed. A nuanced opinion is an uncommon thing at both sites, everything is always this black or white, good and evil issue.

    Such views are symptomatic of a very naive mind.

  38. Midnight Commander should die by 1s44c · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Midnight commander is a classic example of making things too easy. Anyone that can't or doesn't want to use command line tools has no business moving files around on any unix machine.

    It's windows mentality to patronize users, it's not unix mentality.

    1. Re:Midnight Commander should die by JustNiz · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Totally agree. Mod parent up.

    2. Re:Midnight Commander should die by Richard+Steiner · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The choice of tools that one has is rarely an either/or choice.

      That's why I tend to write a mix of shell scripts, Perl, and C code depending on the task at hand.

      It's also why I sometimes use Midnight Commander to perform tasks which I could also manage using other (and often simpler) tools. Sometimes file copies in the morning go astray -- I find this happens less often when I use a tool which explicitly shows me the destination. Sometimes using a color-coded editor is nice when my eyes are tired and I'm not on a server which has vim installed (that means most of them here).

      It's Windows mentality to assume that there's only one solution for the job, it's not UNIX mentality. :-)

      --
      Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
      The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
    3. Re:Midnight Commander should die by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 1

      You totally miss the point of Midnight Commander. It is here NOT to make it possible for some clueless newb to get around learning of the CLI. It is here for those of us who use CLI all the time to speed things up immensely. I can move/copy/make quick changes to files/etc orders of magnitude faster with MC then by using raw CLI even with fancy auto-complete functionality. And then there is the Meta-Enter combo which pastes the currently selected file into your commands. MC is a great improvement in productivity for me, to the point that I get the feeling of things slowing down to a crawl when MC is not available on whatever system I am working on.

    4. Re:Midnight Commander should die by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      Midnight Commander is bad because... it's too simple?! God bless you, stuff like this is why I read /.

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
  39. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't find a SourceForge page for the Predictable project. Can you point me to some info on it?

  40. Re:bleh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seconded.

  41. Re:bleh. by feldicus · · Score: 0

    You know, if we're being pedantic, you had to do exactly the same thing. You had to navigate to the parent of the directory you wanted to 86, then invoke the command to delete the folder. The only difference is that your navigation involved typing, whereas the point-and-clicker got there with a mouse.

    Then again, rational argument isn't what /. is about, is it?

    feldicus

  42. Arg! not mc again!! by goombah99 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The two programs that drive me bonkers are mc and vi. Why? because I'm not savvy to their syntax and their is no obvious way to get out of them once you launch them. Control-c and control-d and control-z all seem to get captured by mc.

    So many times I've accidentally typed mc when I meant something else!

    Of course by now I've memorized that :q gets me out of vi.

    I suppose you could give the same lament about emacs but one never accidentally types "emacs". Most unix command lines are 2 letters so one has the muscle memory habit of typing them. So it's very easy to type mc or (less frequently) vi accidentally.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  43. Who needs MC ... by psergiu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... when GNUIT (previously GIT) is out there ?

    Smaller, faster, compiles fine on all platforms with any C compiler and it only requires curses.
    And most impportantly it doesn't crashes and it doesn't corrupsts files like MC does.

    --
    1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    1. Re:Who needs MC ... by JustNiz · · Score: 0

      I wonder what the need for something like this is at all, when its still quicker and more accurate to do directly on the command line all the functionality these tools implement.

    2. Re:Who needs MC ... by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Mostly it's when you need to run a command on a number of files for which you can't come up with a simple glob or regex.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    3. Re:Who needs MC ... by MoreDruid · · Score: 1

      And most impportantly it doesn't crashes and it doesn't corrupsts files like MC does.

      Uhuh... but it doesn't have a builttin spellcheckster I thinks

      --
      The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
    4. Re:Who needs MC ... by caseih · · Score: 2, Insightful

      gitfm is lacking sorely in a number of areas. Here're just a couple major ones:

      - no vfs so you can't enter tar.gz files or rpms, or cpio files
      - keybinding support is inconsistent. For example often times F10 is mapped by the terminal or the windowing system to a particular function. Normally you'd expect that F10 and Esc-0 are the same. But this is not the case in gitfm. Although Esc-0 works from the main screen, you cannot use it to exit the "view" mode.
      - no apparent way to change directories in gitfm without drilling down.

      For the few things I use mc for (checking out rpms, cpios, etc), gitfm just doesn't work.

    5. Re:Who needs MC ... by retroStick · · Score: 1

      It requires curses? MC *generates* curses!

    6. Re:Who needs MC ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Why is it that GNOME supporters start projects that duplicate existing projects. Would it not have made more sense for GIT developers to work on the mc project? I'm all for choice, but I get a big Not Invented Here vibe from many GNOME-related developers.

    7. Re:Who needs MC ... by Strake · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but then you can't say something like "Never fear, Midnight Commander is here!"

      Duh-da-da-daaaa!

    8. Re:Who needs MC ... by mxs · · Score: 3, Informative

      You can FUD like the best of em, I give you that.

      I have MCs still running that were started 3 years ago (and used, too !), so bollocks on the crashes.

      Corrupts files ? Care to give an example ? At least I have not run into such a bug.

      I'll give GnuIT another look. Last time I tried it, I went back to mc.

    9. Re:Who needs MC ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's see now, last week with I "opened" a zip file which contained a bunch of zip files, I opened one of them, wow i'm recursing down "virtual file systems" copied the file i needed with a single F-5.

      Now can someone explain how to do that in some GUI so eloquently, simply and without serious damage to my hands through some gyrated mouse selection process?

      ERM teh only mc likeness in krusader is in the description of the programme.

    10. Re:Who needs MC ... by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      Konqueror can do that. Double click on the zip, it opens up right in Konqueror, explore, find file, right click, select "Copy to", select location.

    11. Re:Who needs MC ... by psergiu · · Score: 1

      The post was written using MC :)

      --
      1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    12. Re:Who needs MC ... by psergiu · · Score: 1
      • vfs is for the weak
      • Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C
      • Ctrl-X, Ctrl-D

      Know your Emacs.
      I personally knew the original developpers - the original UIT (which became GIT and now GNUIT) was developped as a Emacs complement so all the keybindings are Emacs-like.

      --
      1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    13. Re:Who needs MC ... by psergiu · · Score: 1

      MC + NFS + Gigabytes of files = disaster.
      MC + IRIX + Lots'o'files = disaster.

      GnuIT was fine - maybe because for the copy operations it forks a /bin/cp ?

      I used MC for years then i switched to GnuIT and never looked back.

      --
      1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    14. Re:Who needs MC ... by psergiu · · Score: 1

      You cannot do a Ctrl-C,N,D very easily in command line (in GniIT it renames the currently tagged files to all-lowercase letters)

      --
      1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    15. Re:Who needs MC ... by Slashcrap · · Score: 1

      ... when GNUIT (previously GIT) is out there ?

      Smaller, faster, compiles fine on all platforms with any C compiler and it only requires curses.
      And most impportantly it doesn't crashes and it doesn't corrupsts files like MC does.

      Blatant bullshit in order to promote an inferior GNU project.

      Is that you Richard?

    16. Re:Who needs MC ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "And most impportantly it doesn't crashes and it doesn't corrupsts files like MC does."

      I don't think I've seen mc corrupt a file or crash in 10 years time even once. And I use it at least a few times a week.

    17. Re:Who needs MC ... by psergiu · · Score: 1

      Nope, i'm not RMS (although i am growing a beard) :)

      I didn't said it was superior - it's just better :)
      The same way Emacs is better than other editors :)

      --
      1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    18. Re:Who needs MC ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why is it that GNOME supporters start projects that duplicate existing projects.

      The truth is more interesting. Years ago MC has been dropped out of GNOME in favor of Nautilus.

    19. Re:Who needs MC ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Corrupts files ? Care to give an example ?

      Until recently it had troubles with UTF-8. Editing a file using encoding different from the system locale could result in unrecoverable mess. Ditto directories with non-ASCII symbols. Mainline did not support UTF at all, and unofficial patches each introduced its own quirks.

      The first thing those resurrectionists did was integrating those UTF patches and fixing their bugs. UTF and European legacy encodings seem to work fine, but I'm not so sure about Japanese.

  44. Re:bleh. by Arker · · Score: 1

    Some of us have access to a GUI but are smart enough to use a better tool anyway.

    --
    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
  45. IANACLH by DrugCheese · · Score: 2, Informative

    I am not a command line hacker - mc has always been a VERY important tool I install in just about every box I've ever set up.

    Glad to see it's not forgotten about

    --
    *DrugCheese rants*
    1. Re:IANACLH by 1s44c · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I am not a command line hacker - mc has always been a VERY important tool I install in just about every box I've ever set up.

      ls directory
      mv source dest
      cp source dest
      rm file
      rmdir dir

      If you can't master that then how on earth do you have the knowledge to set up any kind of box?

    2. Re:IANACLH by Richard+Steiner · · Score: 1

      Okay, now transfer this six-level-deep application directory tree to the new server using only the command-line ftp client found on a vanilla Solaris 8 server. :-) And no, the software isn't available in package form, the current config data on the host server is required.

      Oh, and you have to have it up and running in 15 minutes because we have a customer that want to test it TODAY.

      I'm gonna use mc, thank you!

      Sometimes prefab building sections possess more utility than a pile of building blocks even though the pile is perhaps more "pure" in its approach to the problem. Welcome to the real world. :-)

      --
      Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
      The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
    3. Re:IANACLH by Abcd1234 · · Score: 1

      "Okay, now transfer this six-level-deep application directory tree to the new server using only the command-line ftp client found on a vanilla Solaris 8 server. :-) "

      Umm... have you never heard of tar?

      If the answer is "no", then, no offense, but you have *no business* administrating Solaris (or any Unix, for that matter).

    4. Re:IANACLH by 1s44c · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Okay, now transfer this six-level-deep application directory tree to the new server using only the command-line ftp client found on a vanilla Solaris 8 server.

      There are many ways to do that.

      Easy: tar, ftp, tar
      No disk space: NFS mount, find source | cpio -pmudv /dest
      Crazy: dd over netcat
      Encrypted for the internet: ( cd /source ; tar -cf - * ) | ssh dest 'cd dir ; tar -xf -'

      MC isn't the only way to copy files, it isn't even a good way to copy files.

    5. Re:IANACLH by Richard+Steiner · · Score: 1

      Heh. Yes, that's a good solution at times, but tar is useless when you don't have enough scratch space left to make that 20GB directory tree into a tarball in the first place. :-)

      Not a bad solution for many problems, however. Just not large ones.

      --
      Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
      The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
    6. Re:IANACLH by Richard+Steiner · · Score: 1

      I use mc because I can't be root on the servers at work (I don't play sysadmin, I write software), I don't have the space to create large tarballs, and things like nfs mounts are simply not permitted here between servers.

      My limits likely wouldn't exist if I could be root here, but that isn't the case.

      Your solutions are very good for the most part, just not for me. :-)

      --
      Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
      The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
    7. Re:IANACLH by Hatta · · Score: 0, Redundant

      rsync

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    8. Re:IANACLH by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And somehow all of this magic is simpler than ''select files to copy then click copy''?

      Puh-lease. tar/ftp/tar is only ok, if you want to waste time for tar/untar, and waste space for your tar files.

    9. Re:IANACLH by Richard+Steiner · · Score: 1

      Hey! Stop trying to make viable recommendations for my artificially contrived hypothetical situation here... :-)

      Besides, in all seriousness:

        > rsynch
      -bash: rsynch: command not found

      Oops. :-(

      Next!

      --
      Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
      The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
    10. Re:IANACLH by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      I use mc because I can't be root on the servers at work

      You mean they don't trust you?

      I don't have the space to create large tarballs

      Your company is too tight to buy disks which cost almost nothing.

      things like nfs mounts are simply not permitted here between servers.

      Your company want to be obstructive.

      Your solutions are very good for the most part, just not for me. :-)

      Netcat would work with the limits you have stated. You can bind ports over 1024. But if you are going to put netcat on the destination machine you might as well use sshd on a high port.

      If you really work for the kind of company that don't trust you with root access on the machine you use, won't give you decent sized disks to do your job, and ban NFS you might want to spend some time checking jobserve in the 12 hours it will take mc to ftp 20Gig of files one file at a time.

    11. Re:IANACLH by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      Hey! Stop trying to make viable recommendations for my artificially contrived hypothetical situation here... :-)

      So.. What you are saying is that MC only has value in artificially contrived hypothetical situations?

      Useful.

    12. Re:IANACLH by Hatta · · Score: 1

      I'm only teasing at this point, I guess you are too. But to be sure, it's spelled 'rsync'.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    13. Re:IANACLH by DrugCheese · · Score: 1

      Not all jobs are the same, I've worked at a lot of companies where I did not have root. My time is money, most of that time, mc is quicker for me then any of the above. Most of the time though, the above is not available. mc has value to me, and apparently to others, if that bothers you - troll elsewhere.

      --
      *DrugCheese rants*
    14. Re:IANACLH by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      It's "rsync" not "rsynch", and even my PS3 has it, not that I ever need to use it.

    15. Re:IANACLH by Abcd1234 · · Score: 1

      And you don't have SCP available? TBH, I find that a little startling. I mean, yeah, I get it, vanilla Solaris... but what kind of environment are you coping with where you have both remote access to the box, but an inability to install an ssh daemon?

    16. Re:IANACLH by eknagy · · Score: 1

      SCP?

    17. Re:IANACLH by Des+Herriott · · Score: 1

      Why are you messing around with temporary files in the first place?

      $ tar czf - directory | ssh remote "tar xzf -"

      or

      $ scp -Cr directory remote:

      or even better:

      $ rsync -az -e ssh directory remote:

      OK, so ssh & rsync are not stock Solaris, but then neither is mc.

  46. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sorry for this.

    There are currently over 2000 different IPs online on the webserver _per minute_. We are currently looking for a solution to fix this as fast as possible :S Sorry for the downtime (and thanks for your excellent DoS! :))

  47. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by feldicus · · Score: 0

    Listen, if you're not interested in the type of supercomputer used to suggest the next Weird Al parody, you can just get the fuck out!

    feldicus

  48. Updating the Windows Port would be nice by WimBo · · Score: 1

    Just having the windows compilable option in the source code would be really nice. Being able to produce a 64 bit windows command line executable would be sweet.

    1. Re:Updating the Windows Port would be nice by rduke15 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      While MC is by far the best file manager on Linux (and a very handy text editor too), you don't really need it in Windows.

      Total Commander is much better in that environment. And while it is not Free, you can still use it for free if you accept an additional click when starting it. I have bought 3 licenses for my home machines, but use it constantly on all my client's machines in it's non-paid incarnation. The little nag screen really doesn't bother me.

      The OS which is most lacking in this regard is actually Mac. A good Total Commander clone is the only thing I'm really missing when working on Macs. (yes, I know about (and use) muCommander).

    2. Re:Updating the Windows Port would be nice by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      Isn't regular mc available for OSX via Macports or Fink?

    3. Re:Updating the Windows Port would be nice by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      And then, of course, there's the Far Manager, which is true to the original idea (Win32 console text-based with classic blue panels!), very powerful, extensible, and OSS. Then add the Colorer plugin for Far's built-in editor, and you get a really powerful mix - Colorer is extensible, too, with very powerful regex-based schemas, and so far is the only editor I know which can highlight all XSLT 2.0 constructs, and all XPath 2.0 within that XSLT, differentiating XPath axes, function calls, variable references, etc.

    4. Re:Updating the Windows Port would be nice by mrzyx · · Score: 1

      And while it is not Free, you can still use it for free if you accept an additional click when starting it.

      From the "Licence/Copyright" section in the help file:

      Use of this software after the trial period of one month is in violation of international Copyright law! It is also unfair to the author, who has spent hundreds of hours developing this program.

    5. Re:Updating the Windows Port would be nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice software... i still miss it when working on Linux machines.

      "Total Commander" is the first piece of software i bought as soon as i started earning enough money to afford buying software.

      It's the best file explorer available.

      Luckily, in Linux you have the console, and the relative lack in ambiguity when using it, that allows you to do your job properly. But i still miss being able to install Total Commander on it.

  49. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Thelasko · · Score: 1

    Seriously, three comments and the server's already 500ing?!?

    It was probably running Dolphin.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  50. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by muckracer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    > The two programs that drive me bonkers are mc and vi. Why?
    > because I'm not savvy to their syntax and their is no obvious way
    > to get out of them once you launch them.

    So F10 for QUIT is too hard, especially when it's actually printed on the key bar (which in every distro I tried was always set to be displayed by default)?
    C'mon man...

  51. MC over SSH by muckracer · · Score: 1

    First things first: I love MC and thanx for keeping it going.

    Question though: anyone know why sometimes the windows and frames of MC don't display right via SSH (instead of lines you get funky characters and even files you highlight flip in space). On other servers it works just as nicely as it does locally. Any ideas what the cause of this weirdness is and how to fix it?

    1. Re:MC over SSH by rduke15 · · Score: 1

      character set problems? If you use PuTTY, try settings in the Window->Appearance and Window->Translation pages.

    2. Re:MC over SSH by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      I'm having the same problem with local use of mc in mrxvt and rxvt, garbled characters where the DECgraphics lines should be. Works fine in xterm and urxvt though.

    3. Re:MC over SSH by ciggieposeur · · Score: 1

      I would guess this is a Unicode issue. If your LANG is something like en_US.UTF-8 then switching it to en_US might fix things.

    4. Re:MC over SSH by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      Thought that might be the case but wasn't for certain. Doing a

      export LANG=en_US

      before starting mc did the trick, thanks.

  52. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by UnNamedLINUX · · Score: 1

    I love mc

    --
    --==## Who Frags Ya? Baby! ##==--
  53. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Okay.. thanks for taking down my/our webserver.. however most of the people will be interested in the sourcecode (at least I hope so).

    For those which only want to have the code, please have a look on this git mirror:

      http://repo.or.cz/w/midnight-commander.git

    as I've currently took down the webserver because it makes no sense to let him running this way. I'll search for a solution as fast as possible.

    Greetings
    Patrick Winnertz
    on behalf of the MC Development Team

  54. Point well taken by bogaboga · · Score: 1

    I understand what you are saying. Sadly, it is this very paradigm that will keep us from "world domination" yet we have the resources.

    Sad indeed! 10 years from today, we'll still be where we are now...you might ask: Where? I would answer: STUCK in the corridors of irrelevance when it comes to the desktop.

    1. Re:Point well taken by Hatta · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm pretty sure the people working on this project would consider anything "desktop" oriented irrelevant.

      If I can type 'mc', hit a bunch of hotkeys, and be done in a couple of seconds isnt' that a tool worth having? I can do a hell of a lot with mc before krusader even loads up. And I don't even have to take my fingers off the keyboard.

      That's not irrelevant to the desktop, that's a superior alternative to the desktop.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:Point well taken by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      The big problem with this sort of "holier-than-thou" attitude is that it
      can be applied to more than just something like MC. You can use this as
      an excuse to belittle ANY project that doesn't fit into your rather
      limited view of what should or shouldn't be on the desktop.

      This mentality doesn't just apply to console tools but it also applies
      to alternative desktop tools as well as highly specialized GUI apps.

      It can apply to anything that doesn't suit the desktop nazi du jour.

      If I wanted that kind of crap I could have just stayed with Windows.

      Mebbe I don't want to use the what the rest of the herd uses.

      This applies equally well to vi or KDE.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  55. Re:bleh. by V!NCENT · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Define better. GUIs are sometimes faster and sometimes the commandline is faster. Both have ups and downs in terms of both speed and security. I like to use them both.

    --
    Here be signatures
  56. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by Richard+Steiner · · Score: 2, Informative

    The function key line showing "10 QUIT" is displayed on the bottom left by default, the "eXit" option is displayed under the File menu in an obvious place at the bottom, and typing "exit" at the command line will exit the program just like it does any other shell.

    With all due respect, what other information would you like? And how more obvious could it be?

    I agree that quitting isn't obvious if you don't think of it as a shell AND if you don't have your F-keys properly defined in your xterm or ssh client, but that's a user issue, IMO.

    Equating the mc UI with the vi UI is ... silly.

    --
    Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
    The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
  57. Re:Sweet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    True, open sores "programmers" often tend to go for their own gender, not necessarily because they are homosexual, but because after half a lifetime of rejections from the female gender, they turn to their own. Sad really. It gives those who are homosexual by birth also a bad repution.

  58. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by V!NCENT · · Score: 3, Funny

    How about a "Top 5 greatest Linux file managers that you should use" with full res HD 1080p screenshot per page with a stupid concl-... er...

    *Ducks and runs*

    --
    Here be signatures
  59. Rewritting in Python? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Arrrgh! They started rewritting it in Python! Tough bastards.

  60. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Priceless. Dead as a doornail.

    He's just pinin' for the fjords!

  61. Re:bleh. by daveime · · Score: 1

    I see you finally managed to stomp on that 25 year old BSD filesystem bug in 2008 though ... congrats.

  62. Anyone else regret... by jhfry · · Score: 2

    Anyone else regret not getting attached to tools like MC years ago?

    There are a few tools that pop up whenever people discuss the easiest or best way to do a task... and I always wish I had made the investment of time to get proficient with those tools. However it almost seems too late.

    For example, vi and emacs... I am sure they are great, but the investment of time to get proficient makes it hard to justify even trying. So on my headless linux boxen I use nano, I can do everything I need to do without a cheatsheet.

    MC is the same way... I have tinkered with it, but I always found myself exiting to the command line because I would find something I didn't know how to do and didn't want to take the time to figure it out.

    Does anyone have any tips on how to best add these types of tools to your tool set when you've mastered an alternative. Simply saying to use it doesn't take into consideration productivity.

    Are these tools worth investing personal time into, say instead of studying for a certification or something. Are the gains really that significant?

    --
    Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
    1. Re:Anyone else regret... by ChienAndalu · · Score: 1

      For vi(m) definitely, if you're a coder. For the rest not so much.

    2. Re:Anyone else regret... by julian67 · · Score: 1

      He said boxen. Please mod down and then exterminate.

    3. Re:Anyone else regret... by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      For emacs and vi - learn the key set of commands and keep them on a handy cheat sheet (index card, electronic note, tattoo, MotD). For vim, that's about a dozen commands:

      gets you back to command mode
      :q! - quit without saving
      ZZ - save and quit
      d$ - delete to the end of the line
      dw - delete to the next word break
      dd - delete an entire line
      x - delete a single character
      i - start an insert before the current position
      A - start an insert at the end of the line
      u - undo

      Then there's learning how to search & replace, or find text, or move to a particular line #. Basically, if you find yourself doing something over and over (such as mashing "dd" repeatedly to delete lines), you learn to scratch the itch and go look it up in the help (or the Linux in a Nutshell book which is a great reference).

      Been using vi/vim for close to 10 years now, it's only in the last 3 that I've expanded beyond learning the basic commands. I'm no expert, but I can do pretty well now with it. At least enough to edit configuration files quickly and pretty efficiently.

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    4. Re:Anyone else regret... by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      One last thought. Once you learn how to search/replace in vim - you'll mostly know how to work with sed (the syntax is very similar). At which point you'll probably start to learn the ins/outs of bash scripting, using sed, tr, find and grep to mash data and parse the output. Basic knowledge of regular expressions is a boon as well.

      There's a lot of fun to be had in unix/linux where "everything is a file" was the old mantra.

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    5. Re:Anyone else regret... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But wait.. MC has a shell line so you don
      t have to exit. Moreover it has macros such as %f representing the current highlighted file. many operations can be done without taking your hands from the keyboard unlike conventional file managers which require moving the mouse. MC can be learned incrementally without a paradigm shift

    6. Re:Anyone else regret... by Risen888 · · Score: 1

      I don't think that's true at all. I use emacs quite a bit, for lots of things, hardly any of which are coding. Right now I'm browsing the web, checking the weather, chatting on Jabber, and editing my .fluxbox/keys files. I could also at any moment be playing chess, checking my calendar, using the file manager, etc., etc. And this is coming from a guy who's hardly written two dozen lines of original code in his life, and often needs help putting together regular expressions.

      Same with mc. I came to it by way of Krusader, but I've gained a lot of appreciation for mc since switching from Gnome to Flux on my laptop this past year. The mc apps file may be what finally makes me learn regexps :)

      --
      Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
    7. Re:Anyone else regret... by ilyag · · Score: 1

      In my opinion, if you didn't get addicted to them, you probably don't need them.
      My only suggestion is that whenever "the alternative" repeatedly feels uncomfortable for some task, give the tried and tested tools a try. You'll either get addicted in no time, or go back without wasting much time and having learned something.

    8. Re:Anyone else regret... by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      mc was a easy transition for me, I used to use norton commander under DOS. I just used my previous experience with Norton Commander and applied it to Midnight Commander.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
    9. Re:Anyone else regret... by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      So on my headless linux boxen I use nano, I can do everything I need to do without a cheatsheet.
      Try mcedit. Like nano it's piss easy to use but unlike nano it has things like syntax highlighting and a display of your current line number (this is very important when something says error on line xxx and you need to find that line in the file to correct it).

      It does have a couple of annoyances (like if you forget to unselect stuff it's very easy to accidently delete it later and it doesn't understand dos line endings) but generally I've found it to be very nice.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    10. Re:Anyone else regret... by jhfry · · Score: 1

      I realize it has a shell... and I realize it's extremely powerful.

      But it's not intuitive. I can fire up nautilus, or Thunar, or some other graphical file manager and have some level of competency almost immediately. With MC, VI, and emacs I feel like an accident victim learning to walk again.

      Learning anything incrementally, when you already know an alternative, assumes an investment in time. Not to mention habit. I type "sudo nano /etc/xxxx" without thinking about it anymore... and editing, though not nearly as fast as a vi pro can do it, is equally brainless. It may take months to achieve that level of comfort with a new tool, and in those months I will be repeatedly distracted by trying to figure out the tool I am using.

      Is it worth it?

      --
      Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
    11. Re:Anyone else regret... by Reziac · · Score: 1

      I didn't care for Norton Commander, but I think LIST and XTree are fundamental parts of any DOS system. MC is close enough to XTreeGold. :)

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    12. Re:Anyone else regret... by Fulg · · Score: 1

      Is it worth it?

      It's worth being vaguely familiar with vi (being able to edit a config file, save, and quit; no need to be proficient), because the one time your Linux box craps out at boot, that's all you're gonna get to fix it -- nano/pico/joe won't work.

      Of course you could always use a LiveCD, and mount your existing partition... Back then this wasn't an option, so I have developed basic vi survival skills, it's not that hard :)

      --
      gcc: no input sig
    13. Re:Anyone else regret... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. I do. (Really I regret delaying getting into the whole linux scene).

      That said, I also used to used nano, and other "friendly" tools. I did the same dabbling with vim, running away as soon as I hit a wall I didn't feel like climbing and went back to nano.

      Until one day I wanted syntax highlighting with some real power, and after a day of googling and scratching my head, I discovered nano wouldn't cut it anymore.
      So I opened up vimtutor, spent about two days learning the very basics and then committed myself to sticking with it. And WOW. It took a week or so to get used to, and I am still training myself to use some of the more complex commands by reflex, and learning even more nearly daily, but it only took a week of determination to learn vim and not run back to nano until I was at least as proficient. And now I am much more productive, because more powerful tools live up to their namesakes, I've more than made up for the week I spent struggling. Heck I probably made it up in the second week of use.
      (And this week I am falling in love with vimperator.)

      Committing to the one or few weeks it will take to learn and overcome the urge to run back to nano is wholly worthwhile. Even instead of studying for a cert. heck even instead of studying for class, like I did. It made up for time in the CS course I was taking very rapidly.

      (Bonus that vim is installed on virtually any system you might come across, not so with nano.)

      Tips? Despite you're plea against "use it," that's the best way to learn anything, computer based or not. For vim there is vimtutor, which helps immensely. The other thing I personally did was, to leave a Firefox tab protected with a vim cheatsheet open all the time when I was programming, then help is near at hand. You will get paid dividends in productivity for your investment in learning, I promise.

    14. Re:Anyone else regret... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Frankly, I find that I just use simple gui tools or basic shell commands for nearly everything these days, (I am not an avid programmer) but I will say that back when I switched to using vim as my primary editor, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought. If you're using nano, you'll be as productive as you are now after a day of two of using vim with a simple cheat sheet. It looks hard because there are no visual cues, but even fairly complex functionality just requires that you use it often enough to not forget ;)

    15. Re:Anyone else regret... by spauldo · · Score: 1

      I feel that way about emacs; it does all kinds of stuff that sounds really interesting, but I could never make myself use it long enough to learn it. I don't like using the control key for everything. I'd hate to think of what it would be like on my laptop, since it has the Fn key where my pinky insists the CTRL key should be.

      mc was never a priority for me; I had access to XTree Gold and DOSSHELL back in the day, and never cared for either of them. When I moved to UNIX, I didn't bother with it because after reteaching my fingers to type 'ls' instead of 'dir' and whatnot, I pretty much had all I needed.

      vi and vim are a different story. Like you, I used to use pico (which, IIRC, is what nano is a clone of - it came with the pine email program) for editing. Then I had to work on a Solaris box and realized that I needed vi skills quick. I forced myself to use it and nowdays I can't imagine being without it.

      My advice: vim is great and all, but it's not everywhere, so if you decide to learn it I'd suggest using nvi or elvis (or plain old vi if you have access to it) first. Once you have the basics down and learn the weird stuff, then switch to vim and take advantage of all the cool stuff. vim is much more forgiving than vi, and you can learn bad habits if you start out with it. There is a vi compatibility mode for vim, but I'm not sure how good it is. Also, try to use the key commands instead of special keys - i.e. h for 'left' instead of the left arrow. Those keys work the same in quite a few other programs as well, and work fine no matter what your terminal setup.

      It shouldn't take more than about a week to get used to vi, but it will be a painful week. After that, you'll be much more productive with it than you'd ever be with nano. If you do a lot of editing, it's definitely worth it. After all, another cert might help you find another job, but learning vim (or emacs, if that's your thing) will help you be happier working that job.

      --
      Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
    16. Re:Anyone else regret... by hollywoodb · · Score: 1

      You might like joe. It's an editor that's very powerful, has syntax highlighting, and usually much friendlier than nano/pico. Fire it up, and do Control-K then H. There's your helpful help screen, much like the bottom area of nano. You can also use Control-N/P/F/B to navigate instead of taking your hands off the home row to get to the arrow keys.

      --
      I may have to share this planet with animals, but I'm doing my damn best to eat every last one of them.
  63. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    I remember before Linux my first hint at this was Volvalk|sp?| Commander, that some Russian uploaded on my BBS. It was great when I got Linux in 1994 messing with the commands I did a MC and I was quite happy to see it.
    Yes I am sure people will point out all of those are based on Norton Commander, but still, I lay out my windows like in MC for me to work.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  64. Re:bleh. by UncleRage · · Score: 1

    Not just headless...

    I was recently asked to setup several prototypes (Moodle, eGroupware and eTicket) at work. After a week or so, Moodle migrated to a VM down at county office and Joomla was installed as a front end for the other two. A week later, my desktop (iMac) was pulled away (I work for a school district, it happens), so I'm now based off my dev box -- first thing I did was install Xorg, WMII, GPM and MC. Everything I need for a "desktop" environment in a place where no sane desktop environment should exist: a server.

    MC is fantastic, glad to know it's getting some love again.

    --
    #SickNotWeak
  65. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by dotancohen · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sorry for this.

    There are currently over 2000 different IPs online on the webserver _per minute_.

    Welcome to 1997.

    (oh, wait, this is the Midnight Commander team that we are talking to)

    Er, dude, this Slashdot thingi has been doing this to webservers for over a decade now! Good morning, and welcome to 2009!

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  66. lame and predictable by CarpetShark · · Score: 3, Funny

    So Lame and Predictable walk into this bar...

    I think I've heard this one. Not a fan.

  67. for windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hi All,

        I hope that a windows version gets maintained in the official repository. Are there reasons why it currently isn't ? I mean, if git source control system can have an windows version maintained in the official repository, is it so difficult for mc ?

    Thank you,

    BR,
    ~A

  68. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by X3J11 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I remember before Linux my first hint at this was Volvalk|sp?| Commander,

    Volkov Commander? (Warning: The URL given links to a page that may cause uncontrollable flashbacks to the Web circa 1995. Proceed with caution.)

  69. Far Manager by 3.14159265 · · Score: 2

    Unarguably the true descendant of Norton Commander, and it has gone open source recently!
    Proper archive support, plug-in architecture, etc,etc.
    http://www.farmanager.com/

    I don't even consider touching any pc running Windows without a copy of this jewel.

  70. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and both of them act in a way stereotypical of their respective minority groups

  71. Re:bleh. by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

    Have you tried Thunar or Rox-filer yet? And if memory serves me well there was a graphical file manager I remember seeing when I was looking for a low resource graphical file manager for my PS2 Linux kit that emulated the classic mc two pane setup, ah I remember now, emelfm.

  72. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by not-my-real-name · · Score: 1

    You would think that this was a site for nerds or something.

    --
    un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
  73. Midnight Commander is nice; Worker is better. by gklinger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While I'll be glad to see the resurrection of Midnight Commander, I'm not chomping at the bit because I think that the Worker file manager is a much better alternative. Its design will be immediately recognizable to those who have spent any time with the Amiga because it is based on (which is a nice way of saying it's a virtual copy of) Directory Opus. Check it out. You won't be disappointed.

    1. Re:Midnight Commander is nice; Worker is better. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Requires X11. Immediate non-starter for those of us who spend most of the time in a terminal emulator.

  74. MuCommander by alfredo · · Score: 1

    MuCommander is pretty good. It even has a dorky icon.
    http://www.mucommander.com/

    --
    photosMy Photostream
  75. Why so much hate? by hduff · · Score: 1
    There are so many negative posts about the revival of interest in what some feel is a very useful application.

    If you have valid criticisms of mc, then you now have an opportunity to have them addressed or even participate in the fix.

    If you don't use it, what does it matter to you?

    I find mc to be at times the best tool to use, sometimes not.

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  76. Re:Sweet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm guessing it's your genital herpes outbreak that gives you the bad reputation, not that you're a butt pirate.

  77. Re:Sweet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whoops.. So sorry.. I thought I was offline..

    Greetings
    Patrick Winnertz
    on behalf of the MC Development Team

  78. bloatware for the command-line by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    don't most people who like the unix command-line like to /avoid/ huge bloated pieces of crap?

    1. Re:bloatware for the command-line by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The current version of MC (4.6.4-dev) takes 2.5 MiB. GNU Coreutils 6.10 take 5.0 MiB. Busybox takes 2.3 MiB.

      Which is more bloated? :)

      Of course, MC lacks some Coreutils functionality. Like dd.

  79. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by rmcd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Except that if you're running MC in gnome-terminal, F10 doesn't work (it brings up the window menu. Now you might say why am I running MC in GT, but we all know that linux users can't stay away from the command line...

  80. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    Why would I configure my F-keys in ssh just so that they will work in a program I never ever intend to use? that would be insane.

    there is no program I use (deliberately) that requires F-keys.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  81. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    So F10 for QUIT is too hard...
    C'mon man...

    Unless of course you are using ssh and the F keys don't work. C'mon man... think.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  82. Re:bleh. by Hatta · · Score: 2, Informative

    Krusader is the best commander like gui for Linux. Give it a shot.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  83. Anyone know of a more vi-like mc? by Paradigm_Complex · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As much as I've tried, I can't get used to mc's rather emacs-like excessive use of modifier keys. Does anyone know of a similar program - or even better a modification of mc - which is more vi-like and uses 'modes' instead of Ctrl et al?

    --
    "A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
    1. Re:Anyone know of a more vi-like mc? by Daethorian · · Score: 1

      http://vifm.sourceforge.net/
      However, I cannot say I like it too much. The hjkl navigation is nice, but that is about it.

    2. Re:Anyone know of a more vi-like mc? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, there's vifm, a file manager with vi like bindings, as the name says..

  84. Jodan desu yo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here you go:

    ~/root#

  85. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  86. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

    Well I can say That I like hearing about stuff like this. I would certainly rather read about cool software like mc than see that Obama pic o' the day. Now here is a nerdy question for everybody: Which commander was the FIRST commander? Was it Norton's old commander? Or was there one even earlier? Because I have been hooked on the "commander" style two pane file managers for so damned many years(My beard is actually turning grey! sob,sob) that I honestly can't remember which two pane style I used first, and even then being stuck in the sticks it was probably a copy of something even earlier.

    I know that for me personally it was probably old Norton commander for DOS(remember when Norton meant quality tools? Damn I miss the days of Norton Utilities being good.) and today I am so hooked I carry Xplorer2 on a flash drive, so that when I have to work on a customers PC I don't have to use that God awful Windows explorer. So does any of the greybeards here have better memory than I and can tell me which was the first two pane "commander" style file manager?

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  87. MC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My question is, why? Why revive MC. It is from the dark ages. Who cares if someone feels they need to revive it. If they want to work on something, why not donate their time to work on projects that are more current and relevant. Oh sure, it's cool,yup, MC sure is. That's why no one really cared if it went the way of the doe doe before. Whatever.

  88. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by Jeremy+Visser · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can get it working by right-clicking on the terminal, and unchecking Show Menubar. Then F10 works.

  89. The "doe doe"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    You're upset that some people have interests different from yours?
    You, sir, are a dodo.

  90. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by BrokenHalo · · Score: 1

    ...just so that they will work in a program I never ever intend to use?

    The only times I have ever used mc have been by accident. I have an occasional tendency to hit the "c" key instead of "v", so have found myself somewhere else when all I wanted to do was move a file.

    My solution here is simply to delete mc. :-)

  91. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by rmcd · · Score: 1

    Thanks!

  92. why all the cookies ? by RGRistroph · · Score: 1

    Why does the new site try to load trac_session cookies repeatedly ? Is it necessary to store data on my computer in order to run a web site advertising an open-source program ?

  93. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by Beetle+B. · · Score: 1

    God, is it any wonder why Digg is kicking Slashdot's butt?! Keep this up and the mighty Slashdot will be nothing more than a niche site frequented by sticky men who proudly use pocket protectors.

    If popularity brings with it the junk that is regularly featured on Digg's front page, I pray that Digg will continue to kick Slashdot's butt.

    --
    Beetle B.
  94. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by Shelled · · Score: 1

    They do on my keyboard.

  95. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

    I'm only 41, but from googling and memory, Norton's two pane seems to be the first.

  96. always loved it as an archive browser by njahnke · · Score: 1

    i used it to get a file out of an rpm on a server once. was much faster than learning the rpm syntax to do it. glad to hear it's back.

  97. Re:bleh. by Risen888 · · Score: 1

    +1

    --
    Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
  98. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are retard?

    Mongoloid?

  99. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    omglolololol digg lol

    digg pawns /. lololol rolf lol

    lol

    omfg lol pawned lol

    lolololol

  100. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by ross.w · · Score: 1

    Use Alt+0 instead (works for the other function keys too!)

    --
    If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
  101. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by thuerrsch · · Score: 2, Informative

    You can also deselect the "Enable the menu shortcut key (F10 by default)" option in gnome-terminal's Keyboard Shortcuts dialog, accessible via the Edit menu.

    --
    most of what follows is true
  102. Then I will take a video :-) by jeremybar · · Score: 1

    24 pictures per second, that should do it and I don't even need to press any button, just need to wave it in the air, it should be enough, and more discrete...

    1. Re:Then I will take a video :-) by jeremybar · · Score: 1
  103. Not just a file manager by PenGun · · Score: 0

    You can do most anything from MC. I use it to play video, games many things. You can bind a file extension to a command and just hilight and hit enter (F9/Command/Edit Extension File/User). I run my 1000 doom wads out of MC as well as all my vids. Even play DVDs one vob at a time sometimes.

      Hard to beat and manages files just fine.

  104. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by dangitman · · Score: 1

    Furthermore, the "Stuff that matters" part is intended to assure that Slashdot news won't be quite a banal as Digg's news.

    And yet, we have Idle. Sigh.

    --
    ... and then they built the supercollider.
  105. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

    Esc-0 will do what you want whatever the terminal (and the same approach works for any other function key). Some of the more persistent Unix anachronisms actually have their uses.

  106. What does this have to do with GNOME by gzipped_tar · · Score: 1

    Anybody noticed the MC mailing lists are "(mc|mc-devel)(AT)gnome.org"??

    If you noticed, didn't this give you an ill omen about it?

    --
    Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
    1. Re:What does this have to do with GNOME by agustkara · · Score: 1

      Now you mention it, it doesn't look that bright anymore.

    2. Re:What does this have to do with GNOME by Ash-Fox · · Score: 1

      It's because mc was originally intended to the be first filemanager for Gnome. However, Nautils replaced it.

      --
      Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
  107. let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Woek · · Score: 1

    Don't you mean "long and prosper"?

  108. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by vally_manea · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ever tried Krusader? After finding it I don't use mc that much...

  109. Re:bleh. by impaledsunset · · Score: 1

    When you accidently delete libc, and cp is not statically linked, cp from the console is not cutting it for real, but an open mc window would be just fine.

  110. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by mejustme · · Score: 1

    but we all know that linux users can't stay away from the command line...

    I must admit, I fall into this camp. I'm constantly running gdm from the command-line.

  111. Re:bleh. by Slashcrap · · Score: 1

    No admin should touch it as it is an unreliabel PoS. I haven't used it in probably 10+ years, but I can remember it dropping things into never never land more often than I'd like to recall.

    I've used it for the last 10 years and never had an issue. Maybe you're the kind of idiot who blames tools for his own mistakes? I mean you seem to think that one poorly constructed sentence which barely even counts as an anecdote is going to sway the opinions of others, so it seems a fair assumption.

  112. alternatives by RichiH · · Score: 1

    Everyone should use the tools that fit their needs, yes. I _loved_ norton commander on DOS, yes. I even made my Win 95 boot into DOS 7, not the GUI.

    But it took me less than three months of using Linux to leave mc behind. Bash was so much more powerful and versatile, I stopped using mc altogether. And that was before I found out about zsh..

    I don't want to troll, change anyone's opinion or anything. I just want to know where the use case of mc is, these days. And "I prefer it, go eat a broom." is a perfectly valid answer :)

  113. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are a complete idiot
    Then don't use gnome-terminal and try konsole or other terminal emulation for X or you can use the pointing device to close MC.
    C'mon man

  114. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by davidsyes · · Score: 1

    Yeh, I too, was thinking something along the lines of "Midnight Commander-In-Chief"... LOL!

    --
    Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
  115. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Chatsubo · · Score: 2, Informative

    Krusader. It's the KDE based MC clone.

    I'm sure there are purists out there who don't want the KDE libs on their machines or aren't into this newfangled GUI stuff. Who want that horrible looking interface on a console. But me, I think Krusader is way slicker than MC.

    And did I say TABS? Sweeet.

    --
    > no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
  116. What, Me Gui? by jman.org · · Score: 1

    MC has been my friend since it was NC. I hope Peter Norton is proud of his creation, and what it spawned.

    These days on 'nix, it's been just as an invaluable tool as it was on DAS platforms.

    I just wish they'd add secure FTP. My kludge is a script that mounts remote systems via fuze-ssh prior to calling MC, but of course this only works where I have access to the remote side's private key.

    Best of luck with the continued development!

  117. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Use Esc, then 0. Works for function keys from 1 to 10 (Esc, 0 = F10).

  118. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by ArhcAngel · · Score: 1

    Keep this up and the mighty Slashdot will be nothing more than a niche site frequented by sticky men who proudly use pocket protectors.

    What do you mean.....WILL BE?

    --
    "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
  119. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    M-0 also works (which might be typed as Esc 0).

  120. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by mcubed · · Score: 1

    Thanks! I have missed that option previously. You've saved me a click on the "F10" label when I want to close mc.

    --
    "No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality;..."
  121. MC Style File Management for Emacs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Once you learn Emacs, you want to stay in it. But, for managing files, Dired just isn't as good as the old Midnight Commander. In fact, no file management system I've used in the last twenty years has been as good as MC.

    Fortunately, someone has created a mode to emulate Midnight Commander, built upon a Dired base. See the Sunrise Commander .

  122. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by lebjoot · · Score: 0

    try ESC 0 (zero). Others: F9 -> ESC 9 and so on...

    --
    Is this /.-honeypot? Oh well, whatever...
  123. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Lord+Ender · · Score: 1

    People who boot headless servers off of small SSDs are "purists" now?

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  124. Being one of the original developers... by Dutchie · · Score: 1

    This is interesting to hear! I thought development had really kind of died out after Miguel started with the GNOME thingie, guess I was wrong (ofcourse I only implemented some recursive copy / move / delete functions which have probably long been rewritten).

    Awesome though that there's apparently still people out there that actively use it, god, it's been SO long!

    --
    • Imagination is more important than knowledge.

      • -- Albert Einstein
  125. Re:"inability to specify ssh connection port" by Lord+Ender · · Score: 1

    Digg is not a social network site (like facebook and myspace) though it tries to be. It's just a link voting/discussing site, as is slashdot, but it lacks the tech focus.

    The best description of digg is "yesterday's reddit links, plus youtube-quality comments".

    --
    A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  126. MuCommander an excellent alternative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MuCommander is an excellent alternative to the various stale *commanders out there.

    www.mucommander.com

    It runs perfectly on Windows, Linux and Mac. It's fully keyboard navigatable. Has an extensible UI through XML and gives me access to SMB, SFTP, Bounjour, etc in the same interface!

    Highly recommended for Commander fans and anyone who works on multiple platforms and is looking for a consistant File Manager experience.

  127. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Reziac · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the tip... I shall check out Krusader next time I have a KDE setup to play with. -- For me, MC makes linux tolerable; I couldn't stand to be without it. It lets me see the underhood stuff I'm used to being able to see in DOS/Win. (I think it's normal to root around inside binaries, why do you ask? :)

    --
    ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  128. Re:The best piece of software since 4DOS. :-) by Reziac · · Score: 1

    You can get MC for Windows??

    (And being used to similar tools for DOS/Win, like XTree... I couldn't STAND linux without MC. Gotta have it!!)

    --
    ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  129. Bring back gmc! by Rysc · · Score: 1

    For the longest time gmc was the finest graphical file manager for Linux and has in some ways yet to be surpassed. I remember when Nautilus was just an announcement and all good GNOME users used gmc. It worked well, it was *fast*! It had none of the problems Nautilus still has.

    I went looking for a new version last year, having for the first time in a while a need for a GUI file manager, only to find that the gmc stuff had been removed from mc! I am shocked, dismayed and saddened.

    If anyone is doing mc again, please look in to re-adding gmc.

    --
    I want my Cowboyneal
    1. Re:Bring back gmc! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If anyone is doing mc again, please look in to re-adding gmc.

      Just add this request to their bugzilla (or "issue tracker") when it gets back up.

  130. NC/XT/MC by cha0t1c · · Score: 1

    .., to the way back machine. Would love to see a "XTGold" sort of manager for UNIX.

  131. But DOpus rules them all by idlemachine · · Score: 1

    I would love to have a fully working version of Directory Opus for *nix. It's the application that made Windows usable for me and the only file manager on any OS that doesn't suck.

  132. Re:bleh. by GiMP · · Score: 1

    Besides the fact you can manually specify files in cp/mv, you can do directory comparisons in all sorts of various ways with find, diff, patch, tar, etc... Not to mention rsync.

    I understand you like 'mc', but I'll pass.

  133. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Unsuspecting+Victim · · Score: 1

    Q: Can I easily run Krusader on a server I need shell into?
    A: Umm.... I don't see why not. Just install and configure an entire desktop environment(as well as this tool), then log out. Now you can start a remote xsession with the server and tada!

    (I've never quite understood the GUI desktop versions of this tool. Be it gnome-commander, krusader or whatever)

    Anyhow, I'm glad to har that mc is going to get some needed attention. It's amazing that it remains as useful as it is, seeing how long it has been feature frozen.

  134. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by Unsuspecting+Victim · · Score: 1

    Or from gnome-terminal menu...
    Edit >> Keyboard Shortcuts...
    Uncheck "Enable the menu shortcut key (F10 by default)"

  135. Re:"let's hope revival is both healthy and lengthy by Chatsubo · · Score: 1

    You can of course, run Krusader locally and browse your remote box via SSH by supplying the path as:
    fish://user@myserver

    Yes I know not the same as having full console access. But to me, a very nice in between, esp for copying lots of scattered files from one box to the other.

    --
    > no, yes, maybe (tagging beta)
  136. Re:Arg! not mc again!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hmmmn to anyone using mc in an invironment where the Fkeys don't work... There is a two key command sequence you could try... press and release the esc key then press and release a number...

    esc 5 should emulate F5 and pop-up the copy input box... esc 0 should do F10...

    I don't know why I can't find this in "man mc" But It's worked for a long time...

    Alternatively if your using gnome I'll bet mouse support works, So you might try clicking on the label that says quit at the bottom of the screen... (you can also click on the menu choices at the top of the screen...)