Installing Midnight Commander File Manager in a Virtual Machine
GNU Midnight Commander is a visual file manager, licensed under GNU General Public License and qualifies as Free Software. It's a feature rich full-screen text mode application that allows you to copy, move and delete files and whole directory trees, search for files and run commands in the subshell. Internal viewer and editor are included. Midnight Commander is based on versatile text interfaces, such as Ncurses or S-Lang, which allows it to work on a regular console without X Windows installed , inside an X Window terminal, over SSH connections and all kinds of remote shells.
To install Midnight Commander in the virtual Machine, first update the apt cache with:
root@ubuntu-focal:/home/vagrant# apt update Hit:1 <a href="http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu">http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu</a> focal InRelease Hit:2 <a href="http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu">http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu</a> focal-updates InRelease Hit:3 <a href="http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu">http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu</a> focal-backports InRelease Hit:4 <a href="http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu">http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu</a> focal-security InRelease Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done All packages are up to date. root@ubuntu-focal:/home/vagrant#
Then install Mid night Commander file and directory and browser with:
root@ubuntu-focal:/home/vagrant# apt install mc Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following additional packages will be installed: libssh2-1 mc-data unzip Suggested packages: arj catdvi | texlive-binaries dbview djvulibre-bin epub-utils genisoimage gv imagemagick libaspell-dev links | w3m | lynx odt2txt poppler-utils python python-boto python-tz xpdf | pdf-viewer zip The following NEW packages will be installed: libssh2-1 mc mc-data unzip 0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 1986 kB of archives. After this operation, 8587 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n]Y Get:1 <a href="http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu">http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu</a> focal/universe amd64 libssh2-1 amd64 1.8.0-2.1build1 [75.4 kB] Get:2 <a href="http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu">http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu</a> focal/universe amd64 mc-data all 3:4.8.24-2ubuntu1 [1265 kB] Get:3 <a href="http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu">http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu</a> focal/universe amd64 mc amd64 3:4.8.24-2ubuntu1 [477 kB] Get:4 <a href="http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu">http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu</a> focal/main amd64 unzip amd64 6.0-25ubuntu1 [169 kB] Fetched 1986 kB in 0s (4975 kB/s) Selecting previously unselected package libssh2-1:amd64. (Reading database ... 63546 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../libssh2-1_1.8.0-2.1build1_amd64.deb ... Unpacking libssh2-1:amd64 (1.8.0-2.1build1) ... Selecting previously unselected package mc-data. Preparing to unpack .../mc-data_3%3a4.8.24-2ubuntu1_all.deb ... Unpacking mc-data (3:4.8.24-2ubuntu1) ... Selecting previously unselected package mc. Preparing to unpack .../mc_3%3a4.8.24-2ubuntu1_amd64.deb ... Unpacking mc (3:4.8.24-2ubuntu1) ... Selecting previously unselected package unzip. Preparing to unpack .../unzip_6.0-25ubuntu1_amd64.deb ... Unpacking unzip (6.0-25ubuntu1) ... <br>Setting up unzip (6.0-25ubuntu1) ... Setting up mc-data (3:4.8.24-2ubuntu1) ... Setting up libssh2-1:amd64 (1.8.0-2.1build1) ... Setting up mc (3:4.8.24-2ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ... Processing triggers for mime-support (3.64ubuntu1) ... Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.31-0ubuntu9.9) ... root@ubuntu-focal:/home/vagrant#
We can now run Midnight Commander using the following command in the SSH terminal:
root@ubuntu-focal:/home/vagrant# mc
We now have a handy 2 pane file and directory browser installed, which will help us with installing the VirtualBox Guest Additions.
