Beyond Linux® From Scratch (systemd Edition) - Version r12.0-816

Chapter 12. System Utilities

MC-4.8.30

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.

[Note]

Note

Development versions of BLFS may not build or run some packages properly if LFS or dependencies have been updated since the most recent stable versions of the books.

Package Information

  • Download (HTTP): http://ftp.midnight-commander.org/mc-4.8.30.tar.xz

  • Download MD5 sum: 96fcd04710b7848fedea8597da4bd7da

  • Download size: 2.3 MB

  • Estimated disk space required: 75 MB (add 86 MB for tests)

  • Estimated build time: 0.3 SBU (using parallelism=4; add 0.2 SBU for tests)

MC Dependencies

Required

GLib-2.78.1

Recommended

slang-2.3.3

Optional

Doxygen-1.9.8, GPM-1.20.7, Graphviz-9.0.0, libssh2-1.11.0, PCRE-8.45, pcre2-10.42, Ruby-3.2.2, UnZip-6.0, a graphical environment, and Zip-3.0

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.

Now, as the root user: 

make install

Command Explanations

--sysconfdir=/etc: This switch places the global configuration 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.

--with-search-engine=pcre2: Use this switch if you would prefer to use pcre2-10.42 instead of GLib for the built-in search engine. Alternatively, you can pass 'pcre' instead of 'pcre2' if you prefer to use PCRE-8.45.

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.

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

mc

is a visual shell

mcdiff

is an internal visual diff tool

mcedit

is an internal file editor

mcview

is an internal file viewer