Beyond Linux® From Scratch - Version 8.1

Chapter 12. System Utilities

MC-4.8.19

Introduction to MC

MC (Midnight Commander) is a text-mode full-screen file manager and visual shell. It provides a clear, user-friendly, and somewhat protected interface to a Unix system while making many frequent file operations more efficient and preserving the full power of the command prompt.

This package is known to build and work properly using an LFS-8.1 platform.

Package Information

MC Dependencies

Required

GLib-2.52.3 and PCRE-8.41

Recommended

slang-2.3.1

Optional

Doxygen-1.8.13, GPM-1.20.7, Samba-4.6.7, UnZip-6.0, X Window System, and Zip-3.0

User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/MC

Installation of MC

Install MC by running the following commands: 

./configure --prefix=/usr \
            --sysconfdir=/etc \
            --enable-charset &&
make

To test the results, issue: make check. One test concerning rpm files fails.

Now, as the root user: 

make install &&
cp -v doc/keybind-migration.txt /usr/share/mc

Command Explanations

--sysconfdir=/etc: This switch places the global configureation directory in /etc.

--enable-charset: This switch adds support to mcedit for editing files in encodings different from the one implied by the current locale.

Configuring MC

Config Files

~/.config/mc/*

Configuration Information

The ~/.config/mc directory and its contents are created when you start mc for the first time. Then you can edit the main ~/.config/mc/ini configuration file manually or through the MC shell. Consult the mc(1) man page for details.

[Note]

Note

On 8.x versions of mc, keybind names used in mc.keymap.* files are changed. This is described in keybind-migration.txt.

Contents

Installed Programs: mc and the symlinks mcdiff, mcedit and mcview
Installed Libraries: None
Installed Directories: /etc/mc and /usr/{libexec,share}/mc

Short Descriptions

cons.saver

is used internally by mc for saving and restoring the text behind the panels on Linux text console.

mc

is a visual shell.

mcdiff

is an internal visual diff tool.

mcedit

is an internal file editor.

mcview

is an internal file viewer.

Last updated on 2017-08-28 20:59:34 -0700