Beyond Linux® From Scratch - Version 2013-05-22

Chapter 12. System Utilities

MC-4.8.6

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-7.2 platform.

[Note]

Note

The download site uses a self-signed security certificate. You will need to accept it as valid to get the source code.

Package Information

MC Dependencies

Required

GLib-2.34.3 and PCRE-8.32

Optional

Doxygen-1.8.4, GPM-1.20.7, Samba-3.6.12, S-Lang-2.2.4, 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     \
            --enable-charset  \
            --disable-static  \
            --sysconfdir=/etc \
            --with-screen=ncurses &&
make

To test the results, issue: make check.

Now, as the root user: 

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

Command Explanations

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

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

--with-screen=ncurses: This option is only required if the optional S-Lang-2.2.4 package is not installed.

--with-screen=(slang|ncurses): This parameter selects the screen library used by MC. S-Lang-2.2.4 is the default if found.

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, mcdiff, mcedit, and mcview
Installed Libraries: None
Installed Directories: /etc/mc, /usr/libexec/mc, /usr/share/mc, ~/.config/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.

mcedit

is an internal file editor.

mcdiff

is an internal visual diff tool.

mcview

is an internal file viewer.

Last updated on 2013-04-25 21:20:41 +0000