In the Dark with Midnight Commander

[Paul Mora]

On Wed, 2003-12-24 at 07:11, Geoffrey Hunter wrote:

>     Midnight commander (and linux generally) has been a big disappointment: 
> I have yet to find any documentation (man pages or anything else), and 
> unlike Norton Commander the command-line (bottom) box doesn't automatically
> look for files in the selected directory - I have to issue a cd command.
> Each box has round and square buttons at the bottom (turn green when clicked)
> but what they do/mean remains a mystery.

There is lots of documentation, you just have to know where to look. 
Midnight Commander has some built-in help, accessible by typing F1.  If
that's not enough, there is a FAQ installed to answer common questions 
(I'm assuming a few things here... on my Red Hat Linux 9 system, when I
installed the "mc" RPM, it came with a FAQ file located in
/usr/share/doc/mc-<version>/FAQ.  If you use a different distro, they
may or may not include it, but you can probably find it at
www.tldp.org).

As for not looking in the selected directory, that may have to do with
the $PATH variable.  The shell normally only looks for executable files
in the $PATH.  If you wish to look in your current directory as well,
append a ":." on the end of the $PATH variable contents.

Don't dismiss Linux too quickly.  Keep in mind that it is a different
operating system.  It takes a bit of tinkering to learn all the nuances,
but once you do, you will be surprised at it's power, stability, and
quality.

pm

-- 
Paul Mora <paulmora-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>

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