GNU Midnight Commander • Hacker News Board

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#101

Post by viraptor » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:45 AM UTC

roywashere wrote: post #45

latchkey wrote: post #23

Brings back memories. This is one of my older open source contributions that's still visible. I helped port it to a/ux in the early 90's. Line 98: https://fossies.org/linux/mc/AUTHORS It was originally written by Miguel de Icaza who became a semi-famous for his work on Mono and others.

And who started Gnome Desktop! That always strikes me as funny. That he made the ultimate tool for in the terminal, and then move on to write a desktop environment

And now porting Godot to iPads as Xodot. https://xogot.com/

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#102

Post by xdkyx » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:45 AM UTC

I used to install Windows Commander (later Total Commander) on every system I have used, so much so that I bought the Total Commander licence. However as time passes by I used it less and less, to the point that currently I run it once a month out of pure nostalgia.

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#103

Post by Ambix » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:46 AM UTC

Still my default tool to install on any remote server. My secret weapon :)

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#104

Post by jwr » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:48 AM UTC

Midnight commander is a great tool, although I think most younger users do not realize that we lost something along the way. Norton Commander was fantastically fast for common file operations not just because of the dual-pane design, but because of several things working together. Thoughtful design of software while thinking of hardware. To get the most out of it, you were supposed to use the numpad on your keyboard. And it should be the classic IBM PC numpad: large +, large 0, [num]/*- in the top row. Then, you wanted your function keys as a top row above your keyboard. Also, ESC was supposed to work immediately, not after a delay.

I know many people think these things don't matter, because you can do everything with MC (and more), but I disagree. In this case, every fraction of a second matters. In the setup I described above, selecting all files in the current directory and moving them to the directory in the other pane is: one flick of the right hand (roll over + and Enter on the numpad), F6 with the left hand followed by another Enter immediately with the right hand. Now try to do that using the + that is on your = key and tell me it's the same thing.

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#105

Post by spookie » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:49 AM UTC

ranger_danger wrote: post #77

axiolite wrote: post #51

I never could use mc. None of the keyboard shortcuts were at all intuitive to me, who had been using many different GUI file managers over the decades. Which is a shame, because I use SSH a LOT and doing normal file housework via pure CLI is super tedious and error-prone... Fortunately, I went looking more recently, and found the nnn file manager, which works properly with the basic keyboard commands I would expect,…

> None of the keyboard shortcuts were at all intuitive to me They're exactly the same as Norton Commander had been since the 80s.

They probably weren't, huh... in front of computers when it was more of a thing.

It sure is a generational thing, I have the same problem with Emacs. But not with Vim.

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#106

Post by Perz1val » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:49 AM UTC

xdkyx wrote: post #102

I used to install Windows Commander (later Total Commander) on every system I have used, so much so that I bought the Total Commander licence. However as time passes by I used it less and less, to the point that currently I run it once a month out of pure nostalgia.

Check out File Pilot

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#107

Post by hxorr » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:50 AM UTC

I am especially fond of mcedit, the midnight commander editor which can be run independently. Very easy to pick up and use as a casual user as opposed to something like vi

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#108

Post by pmkary » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:50 AM UTC

Miguel de Icaza Rocks So Hard. And whatever he makes rocks as much.

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#109

Post by overfeed » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:52 AM UTC

pimeys wrote: post #43

kouteiheika wrote: post #15

I love Midnight Commander so much; I install it on every system I use. It's so much more efficient/pleasant when in comes to navigating the filesystem and doing basic operations, especially when you learn the shortcuts and learn how to use it along with other command-line tools (hint: if you press Ctrl+O in MC it will switch to a normal shell command prompt it the directory you're in, and you can press Ctrl+O again t…

I use it especially when moving files around in my NAS and it is awesome. For GUI file managers, I have to say you can't get better than Dolphin. It has an integrated shell for the current directory, and you can split the view. It can also directly open ssh and SFTP URLs. For local things the combination of Dolphin and it's shell is unbeatable.

> It can also directly open ssh and SFTP URLs.

I wish mc could browse remote URLs, and I'm tempted to author an mc clone in Go to address this particular pain-point. Maybe some day handcrafting bespoke rsync/rclone commands will frustrate me enough to motivate me.

Re: GNU Midnight Commander

#110

Post by atmosx » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 7:53 AM UTC

I use midnight commander to transfer files between my servers using FTP over VPN but supports multiple protocols. Great software, once you get familiar with the shortcuts there's nothing like it. Clean, simple and does the job. You can transfer in the background or foreground. It's a pretty complete tool.