Midnight Commander

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This command is run in the standard Linux environment via the Terminal Activity. The GUI will probably not integrate comfortably with the XO Laptop's Sugar environment. Your user experience may vary considerably depending on the established environment and the other programs running on the laptop, may need re-installation after an OS Update. See the Linux software category for other commands.


LINUX COMMAND

mc  (i.e. Midnight Commander)

A Linux clone of one of the most popular DOS based MS-DOS "file/directory manager" utilities. Very heavily used until the establishment of Windows 3.11. Originally released as "Norton Commander", one of many DOS programs of "Norton Utilities" package. Later purchased by Symantec to be renamed and put under "Symantec Utilities".

Employs basic side by side, two pane navigation and file information. Each pane can be in two separate directories, info view, compressed file view, or even media viewer if correct helper apps are installed too.

Functions

Basic commands:

Note: F1 = (*) Key, (x)/ESC + 1, or Fn-1 , etc. ..
F10  - quit program
Tab  - change focus from one window pane to another.
F9   - access pull down menus
enter- change directory or view file.

All the rest of the commands, are on the 'menu' line on the screen.

F5   - Copy (file or directory or selected files)
F6   - Move (file or directory or selected files), also rename single item
F7   - Make new directory
F8   - Delete (file or directory or selected files)
..etc..

Install Notes

From Linux (or XO terminal), can be install via

$ yum install mc
=============================================================================
Installing:
 mc                      i386       1:4.6.1a-45.20070124cvs.fc7  olpc_development 2.1M
Installing for dependencies:
 perl                    i386       4:5.8.8-27.fc7   olpc_development   10 M                 [*]
 perl-libs               i386       4:5.8.8-27.fc7   olpc_development  567 k                 [*]
 slang                   i386       2.0.7-2.fc7      olpc_development  329 k
 
Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
 
Total download size: 13 M

Note: [*] = 10 M of this is Perl, which is a common package between yum installs, 
  could be already installed after another package.

Configuration notes

If you use MC to browse videos (playable in [mplayer]), you may want to add a binding for *.m4v files. Edit ~/.mc/bindings (use Command/Edit Extension File). Scroll down to the section with other "Include=video" bindings, and add:

regex/\.([mM]4[vV])$
       Include=video


Under Development

  • Activity-MC.svg : Sugarized version in works. (icon created, Mar 2008)

References