# Midnight  Commander on Mate desktop 12.2 & 13.0



## dalpets (Apr 30, 2021)

MC tries to load onto the desktop but is unsuccessful. Is this a bug? Is there a workaround?


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## Alain De Vos (Apr 30, 2021)

mc works fine on lxqt.


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## balanga (Apr 30, 2021)

dalpets said:


> MC tries to load onto the desktop but is unsuccessful. Is this a bug? Is there a workaround?


Not sure what you mean.... If you open a terminal and run `mc`, what happens?

I run it all the time. I currently use lxde and have no problem.


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## bobmc (May 1, 2021)

I found that starting it from user account does not work unless  "mc -u"  
I don't know why.


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## dalpets (May 1, 2021)

balanga said:


> Not sure what you mean.... If you open a terminal and run `mc`, what happens?
> 
> I run it all the time. I currently use lxde and have no problem.


command not found (@ root) -


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## dalpets (May 1, 2021)

Alain De Vos said:


> mc works fine on lxqt.



Lucky you* *


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## dalpets (May 1, 2021)

bobmc said:


> I found that starting it from user account does not work unless  "mc -u"
> I don't know why.



sh:mc: not found (@ user) -


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## dalpets (May 1, 2021)

On 13.0 I just noticed that I got the following message on installation of mc.

'Note that the stack overflow handling functions of this library need
procfs mounted on /proc'
Could this be the problem? What would be the full entry in /proc


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## Alexander88207 (May 1, 2021)

dalpets said:


> 'Note that the stack overflow handling functions of this library need
> procfs mounted on /proc'
> Could this be the problem? What would be the full entry in /proc



Hello,

to mount procfs on /proc you need to do the following:

`mount -t procfs proc /proc`

To make it permanent, you need the following line in /etc/fstab:

`proc    /proc        procfs        rw    0    0`


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## balanga (May 1, 2021)

dalpets said:


> command not found (@ root) -


Does /usr/local/bin/mc exist? That's where it should be installed. If it's there and you can't run it then it sounds like a permissions problem. Are you root?


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## dalpets (May 2, 2021)

Y


balanga said:


> Does /usr/local/bin/mc exist? That's where it should be installed. If it's there and you can't run it then it sounds like a permissions problem. Are you root?


Yes it exists with the following permissions;
owner=root
group=wheel
permissions=read & write.
I managed to launch mc @ root after getting write permission with xterm `chown` but the file (sh) has only unintelligible ^@'s.
I'm struggling with permissions at the moment. What is the proper octal to get user permission? Thanks.


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## balanga (May 2, 2021)

dalpets said:


> Y
> 
> Yes it exists with the following permissions;
> owner=root
> ...


You could run `chmod 777 /usr/local/bin` to see if it makes any difference.. also start mc using `mc -a` or `mc -c` which might make it more intelligible


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## jmos (May 2, 2021)

dalpets said:


> Yes it exists with the following permissions;
> owner=root
> group=wheel
> permissions=read & write.


You have messed up your file permissions. A binary needs the executable flag (but no write permission). Reinstall your Midnight Commander package, that should fix it: `pkg install -f mc`


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## dalpets (May 2, 2021)

jmos said:


> You have messed up your file permissions. A binary needs the executable flag (but no write permission). Reinstall your Midnight Commander package, that should fix it: `pkg install -f mc`


Thanks for your help, particularly re the flag issue. It now works.


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## dalpets (May 2, 2021)

balanga said:


> You could run `chmod 777 /usr/local/bin` to see if it makes any difference.. also start mc using `mc -a` or `mc -c` which might make it more intelligible


Thanks for your help, it works now.  It looks like the (Mate) Applications Places System is trying to put xterm on the desktop to open mc but it doesn't succeed in doing so. Not a big deal, but it is inconvenient to have to go to root/xterm to open it when working as a desktop user. In other words mc will only open in the root environment.
I assume that when going to root with xterm that the desktop stays in user mode, regardless, if it was there before going to root?


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## balanga (May 2, 2021)

I've never used Mate, I Iike LXDE which is nice and simple. You click on the Applications menu and up pop numerous categories including System Tools and by some magic when you install mc it automatically appears in that category, although I personally like to open LXTerminal and run it from there.


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## SirDice (May 3, 2021)

balanga said:


> You could run `chmod 777 /usr/local/bin` to see if it makes any difference..


No, No, NO. NEVER ever do this. Not even to try. It's utterly useless and dangerous!


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## dalpets (May 3, 2021)

SirDice said:


> No, No, NO. NEVER ever do this. Not even to try. It's utterly useless and dangerous!


I did this & mc now works. Can I leave it so?


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## SirDice (May 3, 2021)

dalpets said:


> Can I leave it so?


No. `chmod 755 /usr/local/bin`


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