My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com) [LWN.net]

My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 3, 2006 20:12 UTC (Fri) by tjw.org (guest, #20716)
Parent article: My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com)

Midnight Commander?

I wish the article provided more insight into mc. I would like to see examples of situations where mc is more useful than coreutils. The impression I get from the program is that it's used and maintained by Norton aficionados only.

The only time I've ever run it is by typing mc by accident instead of mv, but the fact that it's included in Slackware gives me the impression that it is indeed a useful tool for those familiar with it.

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My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 3, 2006 21:16 UTC (Fri) by larryr (guest, #4030) [Link]

Midnight Commander provides a screen/window based file browser/manager layer on top of the command line shell. It provides additional situational awareness, and keystroke or mouse based shortcuts. It is seamlessly integrated with the shell so if in a particular situation a tool in the "coreutils" is a more effective approach, that approach is always available.

Larry

My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 3, 2006 23:25 UTC (Fri) by tsinclai (subscriber, #11399) [Link]

What impressed me about mc was that I can connect to an FTP or SMB share and access it as a local
filesystem.

I did notice the resemblance to Norton Utilities and I had fond memories of those.

My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 4, 2006 9:20 UTC (Sat) by chaneau (subscriber, #6674) [Link]

Well my favorite one is:
cd /#sh:user@host

My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 5, 2006 0:47 UTC (Sun) by jwb (subscriber, #15467) [Link]

That feature is pretty common now, especially if you are using a desktop environment like GNOME, KDE, XFCE, and so forth. In fact in all three of those you can specify a path on the form ssh://user@host/some/path, in addition to the common ftp, smb, and even dav filesystems.

I think mc is popular just because a whole generation of people became accustomed to a two-pane file manager, possibly starting with XTree Gold for DOS. These people believe in two-pane file management the way Catholics believe in the Pope. They'll never use anything else.

As for me, my unbreakable habit is NEdit. People laugh, but I find it highly productive. Users of Midnight Commander feel the same way.

My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 3, 2006 23:50 UTC (Fri) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link]

The best thing about mc is that it allows you to drill down into various archive files (zip, tar, tgz, rar, rpm, ...) as if they were subdirectories. It's a very convenient way to browse for and pull a single file out of a packed archive.

My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 4, 2006 13:49 UTC (Sat) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link]

"The best thing about mc is that it allows you to drill down into various archive files (zip, tar, tgz, rar, rpm, ...) as if they were subdirectories."

I use mc on a daily basis, and this is one of the things I really like about it.

I know about the mount foreign directory trick, but I seldom use that. (I think because I tend to forget to or to forget the syntax. I generally just scp things back and forth when needed.

I also tend to use the mc text editor quite a bit for simple editing jobs.

all the best,

drew

My sysadmin toolbox (Linux.com)

Posted Feb 6, 2006 18:28 UTC (Mon) by wicky (subscriber, #28101) [Link]

"The best thing about mc is that it allows you to drill down into various archive files (zip, tar, tgz, rar, rpm, ...) as if they were subdirectories."

<arrogant> The best thing about mc that you don't absolutely need it and can throw it off your harddisk. Use or learn to use shell commands and be happy. </arrogant>

Another annoying thing is that if one mistypes "mv", mc is the likeliest candidate. zsh prompts me often to autocorrect it to "mc" if I forgot on a system to /dev/null the package on a system.

BTW: The linux.com article lacks depth. 3-4 lines per tool is good for an overview but nothing more.

netcat is missing, wget/curl, ncftp, lsof, strace, (t)ethereal .. (to be completed)

Dirk