GNU Midnight Commander
60 comments
·September 17, 2025kouteiheika
pimeys
I use it especially when moving files around in my NAS and it is awesome.
For GUI file managers, I have to say you can't get better than Dolphin. It has an integrated shell for the current directory, and you can split the view. It can also directly open ssh and SFTP URLs. For local things the combination of Dolphin and it's shell is unbeatable.
unmole
> and you can split the view
You could do the same with Nautilus. But in their infinite wisdom GNOME developers decided to remove that ability.
JdeBP
The thing about Orthodox File Managers when they first came about, that does not occur today, was the amount of time that had to be devoted to explaining that particular features would not work on OS/2, Unices, Linux-based operating systems, or Windows NT because only MS/PC/DR-DOS let programs do things like directly manipulate stuff in some other program's PSP or directly peek/poke video RAM or the keyboard buffer; or that filenames did not necessarily have "extensions"; or that there was more than 1 type of timestamp; or that links and symbolic links existed; or that different people can have different local times on a single machine; or that directories actually have sizes.
Today, the DOS Think is far less prevalent.
Midnight Commander's screenshots would have looked a little off to OFM users with DOS Think. Today, it's the original MS/PC/DR-DOS tools that will appear odd to novices. They did things like have a narrow 8.3 filename column, omit the dots, use graphics in the filename for system files, use glyphs that one could only obtain through poking C0-range codes into video RAM, change UI elements as one pressed and released the Alt key, and so forth.
userbinator
dual-pane file manager
For some reason, the technical term for these is Orthodox File Manager, which I've always thought was an obscure cultural in-joke from the countries where these were most popular --- Eastern Europe and the former USSR.
This origin is elaborated at length here: https://softpanorama.org/Articles/introduction_to_orthodox_f...
kqr
The "orthodox" comes from a specific type of GUI, namely one that is driven by commands under the hood. UI elements are merely used to trigger commands that have the actual effect, and these commands could just as well be executed by hand, or automated into more complex commands.
This is an excellent way to build powerful UIs. It is what drives things like Vim, and often why Lisp-based software is so hackable -- think Emacs, StumpWM, etc. Instead of writing plugins against some small plugin API, you're wiring new functionality directly into the application.
The article you reference goes into more detail, as you say.
Klaster_1
At least in Russia, "orthodox" has an extra connotation that's not strictly coupled to church, akin more to "one true way", as in "orthodox way to learn a tech stack". With a negation, it becomes something like "wrong" or even "heretical", as in "pizza with pineapple".
andrewshadura
What you're describing is the meaning of the word in English. I suspect using the word православный with this meaning started as a joke transplanting the English meaning of the word onto the corresponding Russian word.
pabs3
This with the "Lynx-like motion" panel option and the "Quick view" enabled is the best way to review a source tree. So much so that the Debian ftp-masters use it and a plugin for doing license review of newly introduced packages.
https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/20191228133344.GA4943@...
axiolite
I never could use mc. None of the keyboard shortcuts were at all intuitive to me, who had been using many different GUI file managers over the decades. Which is a shame, because I use SSH a LOT and doing normal file housework via pure CLI is super tedious and error-prone... Fortunately, I went looking more recently, and found the nnn file manager, which works properly with the basic keyboard commands I would expect, and really helped improve my workflow a lot:
buserror
Same here, nnn feels so much lighter too. It also works out of the box, no need to carry around "your" .rc file on dozens of systems as you work
zaptheimpaler
I've been using OneCommander [1] on Windows for a few years now, it's great. Also dual pane with lots of extra features and active development.
vsviridov
I've been using `mc` for decades... In fact, in my early professional days as a software dev, I've written entire systems with PHP using `mcedit` (the built-in editor), because I didn't know `vim` then, and `mcedit` had syntax highlighting...
Joel_Mckay
Mostly used Notepad++ or SciTE ( https://www.scintilla.org/ ) over the years, as the number of languages/platforms I traverse made it a consistent option for dealing with various document encodings etc.
I thought mc and mcedit was cool, but needed something small and portable within a fairly locked-down environment ( "No [root] for you!" as the admin would say.) =3
Ringz
If only you could redefine the keyboard shortcuts...
glimmung
I just couldn't live without this thing. Well, I could but I would be less productive and more grumpy.
Back in the mists of time when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I developed DataEase applications under MS-DOS there was a thing called "Pathminder" [1] which was a very useful tool. Moving to Linux and finding Midnight Commander felt like coming home...
riffraff
When I was young and incompetent mc was the only way I knew to remove files starting with a dash :)
muppetman
Hahah same!!!!
kqr
For people on Android phones, Ghost Commander is neat.
For people who like the power of Emacs dired, there used to be Sunrise Commander but last I looked it wasn't so actively maintained and had some bugs, so I've sadly gone back to regular dired.
xenodium
Dired is awesome. It’s replaced a bunch of my terminal usage https://xenodium.com/how-i-batch-apply-and-save-one-liners
mischief6
my one gripe after using mc for a few years is no parallel transfer support. it slows down significantly when transferring small files compared to one large file.
I love Midnight Commander so much; I install it on every system I use. It's so much more efficient/pleasant when in comes to navigating the filesystem and doing basic operations, especially when you learn the shortcuts and learn how to use it along with other command-line tools (hint: if you press Ctrl+O in MC it will switch to a normal shell command prompt it the directory you're in, and you can press Ctrl+O again to get back to MC; this allows you to easily use MC for things it is the most efficient for, and normal command-line for things where that is better).