Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

jeff story · 2009-06-02 03:46:07

Newbie Arch user here,

I'm used to using a Linux distro that pretty much made using the terminal optional for most tasks.
My favorite distro for the 1 1/2 years did a great job in 32bit, but not so great on my new 64bit.

For various reasons, I was drawn to try Arch Linux x86-64. I have it up and running multi boot (Linux) on my new computer with a few other distros. Now I'm finding that my previous, mostly GUI way of doing things with my previous distro don't work so well here.

I also realized during my Arch install, for the first time, that the CL really shouldn't be avoided. I've never used a command line text editor before installing Arch.

Nano and Vi-Vim, I guess, are the tools of choice for text editing, probably a bunch more out there but I really kinda like Nano now.

So if I accept the idea of doing more things via the CL, what other tools are there out there such as a file browser, etc? I found Midnight Commander and Clex.

MC seems kinda like a step between GUI and straight Cl file navagating. In the Shell, I can cd to /, then from there kinda navigate directories to some of the files I have memorized from GUI but not many.

Now I'm using Arch which has the same basic file structure, but is different from my Debian based distro, MC seems like a great idea.

Is using MC and any other CL tool just going to prolong learning the Bash shell?

Ok also I realize that some people probably use Unix, BSD, Linux in a work enviroment, and therefore "really know" the directory and file navigation without thinking about it. They may have a different opinion than a hobbiest coming from MS?

What are your CL tools and opinion on them? Recently from MS or a Unix vet?

Thanks, Jeff

Last edited by jeff story (2009-06-02 06:14:56)

pharcyde · 2009-06-02 05:36:24

For cli file browsers: mc and vifm seem to be popular choices around here. You could just use ls, cp, mv, etc. for file management.

bernarcher · 2009-06-02 06:17:37

pharcyde wrote:

You could just use ls, cp, mv, etc. for file management.

These are which I mainly use. I have pcmanfm as well, but it is rather seldomly fired up. I am a lot faster on pure CLI nowadays.

pauldonnelly · 2009-06-02 07:48:40

I've tried to use mc. A file manager seems like a neat idea. But it never sticks. YMMV.

Vintendo · 2009-06-02 08:19:38

bernarcher wrote:

pharcyde wrote:
You could just use ls, cp, mv, etc. for file management.
These are which I mainly use. I have pcmanfm as well, but it is rather seldomly fired up. I am a lot faster on pure CLI nowadays.

I removed Pcmanfm and now I am a lot faster with the cli. Practice makes perfect.

sveri80 · 2009-06-02 09:18:28

Honestly, if you're looking for a tool, look at first if there is a CLI tool for it. And most of the times it is.
Unix and Linux are both based on command line tools. In fact, most of the gui tools are based on a CLI
tool, or mix some CLI tools together.

There are some advantages, at least from my point of view.
1. With the command line tool you have access to all options available whereas the gui counterpart
might not have everything implemented yet.

2. You're way faster if you get used to it. Until somebody started mc or dolphin or nautilus
and navigated to the desired path i can type 10 times my 'mv /src/ /dest' or 'cp ...' command
in the console and be done with it.

Of course there are examples there a gui is of big help. For me i find kfind very very
useful. I can quickly search for a file with a pattern and sort the output after file
size or file name or something else.
This is a point where i'd have to read much to long man pages to find out the
correct command to do that.

Mr.Elendig · 2009-06-02 13:58:31

My suggestion is to use whatever you want. Nothing wrong with just using GUI apps in arch, if you want to.

When it comes to command line file management, I use plain old coreutils most of the time, but sometimes I use mc or vim.

When it comes to a editor, if you like nano, then you will probbably be more at home in emacs than in vim.

Hrod beraht · 2009-06-02 14:27:13

jeff story wrote:

...mostly GUI way of doing things with my previous distro don't work so well here.

I used to use Thunar as a GUI file-manager and still highly recommend it. However, over time, I started to find it more cumbersome to use than a terminal, and so now don't even have a file-manager loaded on my system. The "in-between' file managers like Midnight Commander never really worked for me.

But I would say that you should use whatever works best for you - GUI, terminal, or something in-between like Midnight Commander. Or heck, maybe all of them if your situation doesn't fit only one all of the time.

One question, though. What is it about Arch that you think doesn't lend itself so well to using a GUI file manager? What desktop environment/window manager are you using?

Bob

hatten · 2009-06-02 15:55:01

Yeah, i cannot believe that arch is agains gui, but rather the setup with DE's and VM's. I have never tested mc or anything similar, when i came to arch as a new i knew the basic mv/cp/cd from ubuntu, and i learn a few things a little now and then, and i will probably never use mc or something similar.

bernarcher · 2009-06-02 16:16:57

GUI is great if you need some functionality not so often. It relieves you from studying long, possibly complicated man pages. All you have to do is point, add some basic info, and click.

But for any task needed to be done more often or rather complicated, CLI is first choice.

Over time you will grow used to a lot of CLI tools you may not even have dreamt of initially. This is the great thing about linux - you are allowed to grow in your capabilities.

mianka · 2009-06-02 16:33:41

There is one point I haven't seen mentioned : MC has a rather decent text editor built in !

jeff story · 2009-06-02 19:52:58

Hrod beraht wrote:

One question, though. What is it about Arch that you think doesn't lend itself so well to using a GUI file manager? What desktop environment/window manager are you using?
Bob

I'm having problems in Gnome desktop trying to use Nautilus or Gedit as root. IE:

gksu nautilus

or

gksu gedit

See my thread http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=73208.

I was advised to use a CLI text editor......and that got me thinking about CLI tools.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-02 03:46:07

Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

#2 2009-06-02 05:36:24

Re: Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

#3 2009-06-02 06:17:37

Re: Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

#4 2009-06-02 07:48:40

Re: Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

#5 2009-06-02 08:19:38

Re: Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

#6 2009-06-02 09:18:28

Re: Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

#7 2009-06-02 13:58:31

Re: Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

#8 2009-06-02 14:27:13

Re: Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

#9 2009-06-02 15:55:01

Re: Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

#10 2009-06-02 16:16:57

Re: Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

#11 2009-06-02 16:33:41

Re: Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

#12 2009-06-02 19:52:58

Re: Midnight Commander and Command Line Tools.......Yes or Don't Bother

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