Midnight commander es a file manager for Unix-like systems and it's a Norton Commander clone that works in text mode. The main screen consists of two panels in which the file system is displayed.
It is used in a similar way to other applications that run on the Unix shell or command interface. The cursor keys allow you to scroll through the files, The insert key is used to select files and the function keys perform tasks such as deleting, renaming, editing, copying files, etc.
Although Midnight Commander also include mouse support to facilitate the handling of the application.
Midnight commander it has features such as the ability to explore the content of RPM files, work with common file formats as if they were a simple directory.
Includes an FTP transfer manager or FISH protocol client and it also includes an editor called mcedit.
The release of the new version "Midnight Commander 4.8.25" was recently announced, in which some changes were made, the most important of which is the improvement for the Mcedit editor for syntax highlighting.
What's new in Midnight Commander 4.8.25?
In this new version of Midnight Commander 4.8.25 the main feature focuses on improvement what was done to the editor of Mcedit, since now has improvements for syntax highlighting for php, tcl, Cobol and Verilog / SystemVerilog, plus they were added new highlighting modules for Kotlin and ino (Arduino IDE).
Another important improvement in Midnight Commander 4.8.25 is that the file manager now already has support for the opus format to sound file drivers, toyes as well as support for additional executable files to process files lha (jlha, lhasa), arj (7za), cab (7za), zip (7z), zipx (7za), iso (7za).
On the other hand, compatibility with RealPlayer, gtv and xanim was eliminated inherited from the video file driver (video.sh).
As well as the annoying notification «GNU Midnight Commander is already running on this terminal. Subshell support will be disabled«.
Of the other changes that integrated in this new version:
- Added a graphical dialog to change the attributes of files supported by the chattr utility, similar to how access rights are managed.
- Attribute change is only available for Ext2, Ext3, and Ext4 file systems.
- Provided the ability to override keyboard shortcuts for radio buttons.
- I implemented a WGroup widget that provides a base class for widgets that contain other widgets.
- Support for optional dependency tags ENHANCES, SUGGESTS, RECOMMENDS и SUPPLEMENTS has been added in the VFS to work with RPM.
Finally if you are interested in knowing more about it About the release of this new version, you can check the details in the original announcement. The link is this.
How to install Midnight Commander on Linux?
For those who are interested in being able to install Midnight Commander on their system, they can do so by following the instructions we share below.
For now (from the writing of the article) the new version has not been updated within the repositories of the main Linux distributions. So to install the new version it is only possible by compiling the source code.
This they can get it from the following link.
For those who like to waitThey can install the new version as soon as it is available by typing the following commands, depending on the Linux distribution they are using.
Those who use Debian, Ubuntu or any of the derivatives of this. In a terminal they will type the following:
Only for Ubuntu and derivatives, must inhabit the universe repository:
sudo add-apt-repository universe
E install the application with:
sudo apt install mc
For those who use Arch Linux or some derivative of it:
sudo pacman -S mc
In the case of Fedora, RHEL, CentOS or derivatives:
sudo dnf install mc
Finally, para OpenSUSE:
sudo zypper in mc
Phew, I hadn't known about this program for centuries. He thought he was in the past.
As they say, old rockers never die 🙂