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From jtklehto@paju.oulu.fi Sun Jul 28 12:51:47 1996
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 20:52:29 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Janne Kukonlehto <jtklehto@paju.oulu.fi>
Subject: FAQ updated
X-Sender: jtklehto@stekt12
To: miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Hi Miguel,
Here's an updated FAQ file. There are not many changes. I mainly removed
obsolete pieces of information.
Bye,
- Janne
MIDNIGHT COMMANDER
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Also known as Frequently Asked Questions with Answers (FAQ).
HTML edition available at http://mc.blackdown.org/mc/answers.html
Last modified Sun Jul 28 20:35:59 EET DST 1996
Contents
* 1 Introduction and general information
+ 1.1 What is Midnight Commander?
+ 1.2 Who has written it?
+ 1.3 Does it run on my machine?
+ 1.4 Does it work with my terminal?
+ 1.5 What else do I need to run MC?
+ 1.6 Is Midnight Commander PD? Copyrighted?
* 2 Network sources and resources
+ 2.1 Where can I get Midnight Commander?
+ 2.2 What mailing lists are there for Midnight Commander?
+ 2.3 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for MC stuff?
+ 2.4 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
+ 2.5 I don't have FTP access. Where can I get MC?
* 3 Terminfo and termcap problems
+ 3.1 Why don't function keys (or some other key) work?
+ 3.2 Why don't line drawing characters work?
+ 3.3 How can I get colors?
+ 3.4 My color_xterm goes completely (or partially) black!
+ 3.5 Where can I get color_xterm?
+ 3.6 I got colors working with MC but the other programs don't
work at all anymore!
+ 3.7 Why are there both terminfo and termcap? Wouldn't one
database be enough?
* 4 Command line problems
+ 4.1 How can I access command line history?
+ 4.2 How can I add the plus character (+) on the command line?
+ 4.3 How can I complete commands, file names, variable names
and so on?
* 5 Virtual file systems
+ 5.1 How can I see the contents of a tar archive?
+ 5.2 How do I get out of a tar archive?
+ 5.3 How do I do anonymous ftp with MC?
+ 5.4 How do I do non-anonymous ftp with MC?
+ 5.5 How do I close an ftp connection?
* 6 Other common problems
+ 6.1 Why does the ESC key behave funny?
+ 6.2 How do I get the internal editor to work?
+ 6.3 How do I use function keys F10 to F20?
* 7 Development
+ 7.1 Do I dare to use a development version?
+ 7.2 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
+ 7.3 How can I join the development?
* 8 Administrative information
+ 8.1 Authorship
+ 8.2 File formats
+ 8.3 Feedback is invited
+ 8.4 Disclaimer and copyright
* 9 Index
_________________________________________________________________
1 INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL INFORMATION
1.1 What is Midnight Commander?
The Midnight Commander is a user-friendly yet powerful file manager
and visual shell, useful to novice and guru alike. 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. You will wonder how
you could ever live without it.
For more thorough description take a look at the announcement of
Midnight Commander 3.0.
1.2 Who has written it?
Midnight Commander was started Miguel de Icaza and he is the
maintainer of the package. Other authors have joined the project
later:
* Mauricio Plaza (early releases, retired)
* Janne Kukonlehto (joined Sep 27 1994, retired Mar 8 1995)
* Radek Doulik (joined Oct 30 1994)
* Fred Leeflang (joined Nov 2 1994)
* Dugan Porter (joined Dec 1 1994)
* Jakub Jelinek (joined Feb 8 1995)
* Ching Hui (joined Jun 27 1995)
* Andrej Borsenkow (joined Jul 1996)
* Paul Sheer (joined Nov 1 1996)
Alessandro Rubini has been specially helpful with with debugging and
enhancing of the mouse support. John Davis has made his S-Lang library
available to us and answered many questions about it.
The photographs of the authors are available as:
http://mc.blackdown.org/mc/about.html
Many people have contributed bug reports, feature suggestions and
small code bits (alphabetical order):
* Juan Jose Ciarlante (NT port)
* Erwin van Eijk
* Torben Fjerdingstad
* Massimo Fontanelli
* Gern Knorr
* Sergey Ya. Korshunoff
* Jean-Daniel Luiset
* Wim Osterholt
* Antonio Palama (DOS port)
* Thomas Pundt
* Marcelo Roccasalva
* Ilya Rybkin
* Vadim Sinolits
* Jon Stevens
* Adam Tla/lka
1.3 Does it run on my machine?
Midnight Commander uses GNU autoconfigure, so you should be able to
run it on most (if not all) Unix clones. Following configurations have
been tested:
* i?86-*-linux1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.0, 2.1
* mips-sgi-irix5.2, 5.3
* mips-dec-ultrix4.3
* rs6000-ibm-aix3.2.5
* sparc-sun-sunos4.1
* sparc-sun-solaris2.3, 2.4
* sparc-sun-netbsd1.0
* hppa-hp-hpux9
* hppa-hp-hpux7
* m68k-apple-aux
* mc88110-aviion-dgux5.4
* i?86-*-windows-nt-3.51
There is also a preliminary Ms-Dos port at ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx:
/linux/local/DOS/ (but no Ms-Dos binary).
1.4 Does it work with my terminal?
Because Midnight Commander is a full screen program it doesn't run on
dummy terminals but anything more advanced will do (like vt100). If
your terminal works with vi, emacs, elm or pine it will work with
Midnight Commander.
The XView and Tk editions currently under development will require an
X terminal.
1.5 What else do I need to run MC?
You need an Unix compatible operating system.
If you want to use mouse on the Linux console you need General Purpose
Mouse server from iride.unipv.it: /pub/gpm/. You need nothing extra to
use mouse on xterm.
To compile the XView edition (currently under development) you need
XView library. Xpm library and X11 non-rectangular shape extensions
are recommended.
To compile the Tk edition (currently under development) you need
Tk-4.0 libraries. Compilation of the Tk version won't be easy. Contact
Miguel for details.
If you do not want to use the slang library you need ncurses-1.8.5.2
from ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx: /linux/local/.
You can get along with other curses libraries it but results may not
be pretty or even usable.
1.6 Is Midnight Commander PD? Copyrighted?
Midnight Commander is under GNU Public License which basically means
that you may freely copy, change and distribute it, but that you may
not impose any restrictions on further distribution, and that you must
make the source code available. This is not the same as Public Domain.
For details, the GNU license is included in the Midnight Commander
source distribution (the COPYING file).
Midnight Commander is nowadays officially a part of GNU project. All
the authors of the Midnight Commander have given all their rights on
the program to the Free Software Foundation.
2 NETWORK SOURCES AND RESOURCES
2.1 Where can I get Midnight Commander?
Source is available at following sites:
* sunsite.unc.edu and mirrors:
/pub/Linux/utils/file/managers/mc-3.1.tar.gz
* ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx: /linux/local/mc-3.1.tar.gz
There are also precompliled binaries available at ftp.nuclecu.unam.mx:
/linux/local/bin-dist/.
2.2 What mailing lists are there for Midnight Commander?
Following mailing lists discuss about Midnight Commander:
mc
General discussion of the Midnight Commander
mc-digest
The mc list, in digest format
mc-announce
Major announcements about the Commander
mc-patch
The latest Commander patches
mc-devel
Technical development discussion
mc-chat
Non-MC related chatting by the developers (contact Miguel to
subscribe)
To subscribe, send e-mail to majordomo@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx with
the following line in the body of the message:
subscribe <list-name> [optional-address]
Replace <list-name> with the name of the list you want to subscribe
and [optional-address] with your email address.
2.3 Where should I look on the World Wide Web for MC stuff?
There is a WWW page for Midnight Commander. The URL is:
http://mc.blackdown.org/mc/
The WWW page features MC screen shots, photographs of the authors,
mailing list archive and a few other things.
2.4 Are the mailing lists archived anywhere?
The mc and mc-devel lists are archived on the World Wide Web page (see
the previous question). Other lists are not currently archived though
Miguel keeps a private archive. Contact him if you want copies of past
messages.
2.5 I don't have FTP access. Where can I get MC?
Most Linux CD-ROMs include Midnight Commander. For example, Slackware,
Yggdrasil, S.U.S.E., Jurix, RedHat, Caldera and Debian.
3 TERMINFO AND TERMCAP PROBLEMS
3.1 Why don't function keys (or some other key) work?
Your terminfo or termcap database has missing or incorrect definations
for function keys. Type "mc -V" to see what terminal database is being
used. If the result is "using the S-Lang library with terminfo
database" you should install one of the enhanced terminfo databases
included in the Midnight Commander source distribution. For example,
if you are using xterm type "tic xterm.ti".
If the result is "using the S-Lang library with termcap database" you
should fix your /etc/termcap database.
Better termcap and terminfo databases are available here:
http://www.ccil.org/~esr/ncurses.html
You can select whether Midnight Commander will use terminfo or termcap
database by giving --with-terminfo or --with-termcap option to the
configure. Default is terminfo if found, otherwise termcap. If you
don't have permissions to edit terminal databases you can use Learn
keys feature of Midnight Commander instead. Press M-9 c l and follow
instructions.
3.2 Why don't line drawing characters work?
There are three subcases:
* Lines are shown as ASCII characters like this
+---------+
| |
+---------+
Possible reason is 1, 2 or 3.
* Lines are shown as lower case characters like this
lqqqqqqqqqk
x x
mqqqqqqqqqj
Possible reason is 2 or 3.
* Lines are shown as blanks or missing characters. Possible reason
is 3 or 4.
The reason for the problem is one of following:
1. Your curses library might not support line drawing characters.
Slang, Ncurses and System V curses do support them, BSD curses
doesn't.
2. Your terminal might not support line drawing characters. Vt100
compatible terminals, rxvt, xterm and color_xterm do support them.
3. Your terminfo or termcap database might have missing or incorrect
definations for line drawing characters. See the previous question
(the one about function keys).
4. Your terminal font might not support line drawing characters. Try
changing the font.
3.3 How can I get colors?
Type "mc -c".
If you get colors, be happy.
If your terminal stays black and white, your terminal doesn't support
color.
If your terminal goes compelety black, see the next question.
More detailed answer:
First, check that your terminal supports color. Color_xterm, rxvt and
Linux console do support, most other terminals don't. You can test
color support with following simple C program:
#include <stdio.h>
int main (void){
printf ("\033[32m Hello world! \033[m\n");
return 0;
}
Compile and run it. If you see "Hello world!" text in green your
terminal supports color, otherwise not (however, for color_xterm see
also the next question).
Second, check that you are using Ncurses or the Slang library (type
"mc -V" to find out), in addition some System V curses implementations
do support color, most don't.
With Slang library you can force color support by setting the
environment variable COLORTERM to any value.
Third, if you use ncurses library, check that your terminfo database
supports color. If not you should install one of the enhanced terminfo
databases included in the Midnight Commander source distribution. See
the question before the previous question (the one about function
keys).
Fourth, you might want to set the TERM environment variable so that
you use the correct terminfo database or termcap entry.
If you use color_xterm (or rxvt) the correct value might be
xterm-color, xtermc or simply xterm.
If you use Linux console the correct value for TERM is linux or
console.
3.4 My color_xterm goes completely (or partially) black!
Some color_xterm terminals define all colors as black instead of the
standard ANSI colors. This makes them go completely black when you try
to use Midnight Commander with colors.
You will have to override the defaults. Create a file "color.defaults"
which has the following contents:
color_xterm*color0: Black
color_xterm*color1: Red
color_xterm*color2: Green
color_xterm*color3: Yellow
color_xterm*color4: Blue
color_xterm*color5: Magenta
color_xterm*color6: Cyan
color_xterm*color7: White
color_xterm*background: White
color_xterm*foreground: Black
(replace color_xterm with the name of your color_xterm, color_xterm
mentions its name in its title bar)
Now type:
xrdb -merge color.defaults
Alternatively you can add the suggested contents of the color.defaults
file to your .Xdefaults or .Xresources file (or what ever the name of
your X configuration file is). Or you can replace your non-ANSI
color_xterm with an ANSI color_xterm.
3.5 Where can I get color_xterm?
Try ftp.x.org: /contrib/utilities/colour_xterm.tar.gz.
Alternatively, rxvt is a better choice, see ftp.nuclucu.unam.mx:
/linux/local/rxvt/
3.6 I got colors working with MC but the other programs don't work at all
anymore!
Midnight Commander uses terminfo database (if available) but many
other programs use termcap database. If you set the TERM environment
variable to a value which has no corresponding entry in termcap
database those programs stop working. You should add the new value of
TERM to the termcap database.
Example: If you have set TERM to xterm-color locate from /etc/termcap
the line which starts:
xterm|vs100|xterm terminal emulator
Change it to start:
xterm|xterm-color|vs100|xterm terminal emulator
3.7 Why are there both terminfo and termcap? Wouldn't one database be enough?
You might want to read the Unix-haters handbook at
http://web.kaleida.com/u/hopkins/unix-haters.html. It lists many more
reasons why Unix sucks.
You can configure which terminal database you want to use with the
"--with-termcap" and "--with-terminfo" flags of configure. If you
don't specify them, the configure script will try to use terminfo if
available otherwise it will use termcap.
4 COMMAND LINE PROBLEMS
4.1 How can I access command line history?
You can browse previous commands with M-p and M-n. Alternatively, you
can summon the command history listbox by pressing F9 c h.
4.2 How can I add the plus character (+) on the command line?
The plus key is the hotkey for the select files command. If want to
add a literal plus on to the command line you must quote it. Press C-q
before pressing +.
4.3 How can I complete commands, file names, variable names and so on?
Just press M-Tab. Press M-Tab again to get a listbox if there are
multiple possible completions.
5 VIRTUAL FILE SYSTEMS
5.1 How can I see the contents of a tar archive?
If you use keyboard just move the selection bar on the tar file and
press enter.
If you use mouse just doubleclick on the tar file.
If these procedures don't work, your .mc.ext file is faulty. Replace
it with one from the MC source distribution.
You can also enter a tar archive by typing "cd tar:filename.tar.gz"
where filename.tar.gz is the name of the archive.
The recognized suffixes for tar archives are .tar, .tar.gz and .tgz.
If your tar archive uses different suffix you have to rename it.
5.2 How do I get out of a tar archive?
Just press enter on the toplevel ".." file or chdir to a non-tar
directory. Just typing "cd" with no parameters is enough (it will take
you to your home directory).
5.3 How do I do anonymous ftp with MC?
Just type "cd ftp://hostname" where hostname is the name of the host
you want to connect. Alternatively, select FTP link from the Left or
Right menu and type the name of the host you want to connect.
5.4 How do I do non-anonymous ftp with MC?
Non-anonymous ftp works just like the anonymous ftp but you give the
login name with the host name. For example, type "cd
ftp://username@hostname".
5.5 How do I close an ftp connection?
Just chdir to a non-ftp directory. Just typing "cd" with no parameters
is enough (it will take you to your home directory).
Internally Midnight Commander closes ftp connection only after an
timeout. This isn't visible to the end user.
6 OTHER COMMON PROBLEMS
6.1 Why does the ESC key behave funny?
Midnight Commander uses the ESC key as a prefix for simulating the
Meta and Alt keys (for terminals which don't have Meta or Alt). For
example, pressing ESC-a is the same as pressing Meta-a. In addition
most terminals use ESC for internal representation of arrow keys,
function keys and other enhanced keys. If you want to use ESC to
cancel things you have to press it twice i. e. ESC-ESC. If you find
this cumbersome you can generally use F10 to cancel. Alternatively
turn on the old_esc_mode setting in the ~/.mc.ini file. The
old_esc_mode setting makes ESC work as a prefix only if another key is
pressed within 0.5 seconds. After 0.5 seconds the ESC key cancels.
There is no way to make ESC cancel immediately (if we want to be able
to use arrows keys and function keys).
X terminals allow more control over keyboard, so these ESC limitations
might not concern the forthcoming XView and Tk editions of the
Midnight Commander.
6.2 How do I get the internal editor to work?
The F4 key defaults to an external editor because thats what most
people are used to. To use the internal editor, select Configuration
from the Options menu and check the 'use internal edit' option.
Otherwise add the line
use_internal_edit=1
under the [Midnight-Commander] section in your .mc.ini file (which
is in your home directory). To make the editor work all the time, go
to the default/* section in the file lib/mc/mc.ext file and
remove the line
Edit=%var{EDITOR:vi} %f
The internal editor will now be invoked for anything not specified
elsewhere in the mc.ext file.
6.3 How do I use function keys F11 to F20?
These can mapped to function keys F1 to F10 with Shift held.
eg. function key F13 can be activated by pressing Shift-F3.
You can define the keys this way in the Options menu. The convention
for PC keyboards is that F11-20 always means Shift with F1-10
7 DEVELOPMENT
7.1 Do I dare to use a development version?
I am afraid you have to answer to this question yourself. Development
versions seldom cause data loss but they have usually got many bugs.
It's up to you to judge whether new features outweight the bugs.
7.2 How can I report a bug/request for a feature?
You might first want to get the newest development version to see if
the bug is fixed or the feature is added already.
Send your report/request to mc-devel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx or
mc@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx. These mailing lists are the most certain
way to contact the developers. Remember to mention if you are not on
the mailing list to make sure that you will receive a copy of replies.
Give as much details as possible. A too long message is a lot better
than a too short message.
For segmentation faults a stack backtrace is appreciated. You can
produce stack backtrace as follows:
* If segmentation fault produced a core file:
1. Load the core file by typing "gdb mc core" or "dbx mc core".
2. Type "where".
3. Cut and paste the results to your message.
* If segmentation fault didn't produce a core file:
1. Load mc by typing "gdb mc" or "dbx mc".
2. Start mc by typing "run".
3. Try to reproduce the segmentation fault by doing whatever you
did last time when the segmentation fault occurred.
4. Type "where".
5. Cut and paste the results to your message.
6. For the future you might want to check out what is the
command in your shell to allow producing of the core files.
Usually it is "limit coredumpsize unlimited" or "ulimit
coredumpsize" or "ulimit -c unlimited".
7.3 How can I join the development?
To join the development just code the feature you want to add and send
your patch to Miguel. Email address is miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx.
Before you start coding check the latest development version. It might
be that your feature has already been implemented.
If Miguel likes your patch he will include it in the next development
version and you will get your name to contributors section. After you
have sent a few more patches Miguel will promote your name to the
authors section.
Note that because the authors of the Midnight Commander have given all
their rights on the program to the Free Software Foundation you will
have to do the same if you contribute non-trivial patches. Otherwise
we have to reject your patches in order to avoid copyright problems.
8 ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION
8.1 Authorship
Questions and Answers is written by Janne Kukonlehto. Parts of it
originate from Ian Jackson, Miguel de Icaza and Dugan Porter.
8.2 File formats
Question and Answers is written in a HTML-like format. It is converted
to a real HTML by a perl script. The HTML version is rendered to plain
text (ASCII) by Lynx.
The HTML file is available at
http://mc.blackdown.org/mc/answers.html. The ASCII file is
included in the Midnight Commander source package. Alternatively, you
can produce a ASCII version with Lynx from the HTML file yourself
(Press p (print) and choose the (usually) topmost option: "Save to a
local file"). The
8.3 Feedback is invited
Please send me your comments on Question and Answers. There are
probably a lot of things to add. My email address is
jtklehto@paju.oulu.fi.
8.4 Disclaimer and copyright
Note that this document is provided as is. The information in it is
not warranted to be correct; you use it at your own risk.
You can use Questions and Answers according to GNU Public License (see
the COPYING file in the Midnight Commander source distribution).
Questions and Answers is not public domain.
_________________________________________________________________
9 INDEX
Alt
6.1
Announcement
1.1
ANSI
3.4
Authors
1.2, 7.3
Autoconfigure
1.3
Binaries
2.1
Cancel
6.1
CD-ROMs
2.5
Color.defaults
3.4
Color_xterm
3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5
Configurations
1.3
Console
3.3, 3.3
Contributors
1.2, 7.3
Description
1.1
ESC
6.1
Font
3.2
License
1.6
Maintainer
1.2, 8.3
Meta
6.1
Old_esc_mode
6.1
Prefix
6.1
Rxvt
3.2, 3.3
Source
2.1, 8.2
TERM
3.3, 3.6
Vt100
3.2
WWW
2.3
Xrdb
3.4
Xterm
3.1, 3.2
Xterm-color
3.6
_________________________________________________________________
jtklehto@paju.oulu.fi