midnight commander, something interesting

I am having some problem to delete file with funny character name (eg. '-') on Solaris. Sometimes I use the Solaris CDE File Manager(GUI) to remove it, but most of the time I just leave it there. Those 'funny' filename will mess up the screen display when I do a directory list. Definately I don't login to graphical screen on the solaris all the time, but work through telnet.

The first solution came into my mind, is using mc (Midnight Commander). I compile a version (but forgotten which number) of mc and install it on another Solaris machine(this machine do not have a compiler), surprisingly I need a glib library, I got a shock by this.

To do a quick fix, I just do a static link to the mc, and install it to the machine again, but the mc are just too big to fit into /usr directory on that very little solaris machine. I recall I compile mc on solaris before(many years ago), it doesn't need glib, and it doesn't make sense for me, glib is more likely for gtk.

I search around and found out there is fork for the mc, call mc-mp(Midnight Commander, More Powerful), which taken out glib library dependency, and some bugs fix, the code size is much more smaller than the static link of the original mc(about 1MB to 5MB), and using it happily on my Solaris machine.

Recently I search through the net. Found someone (Ali Akcaagac) propose remove dependency of gtk (1st) on the mc-dev mailing list, end up created some flame war. Is a long thread.

If you are too lazy to read through the mailing list, there is another (lengthly) web page which summarize a lot of things about mc; history, and the creator Miguel. The comment for Miguel, he is too much Microsoft style, this explain my question 'Why Miguel create the Mono project?' quite well.

(Midnight commander originally created by Miguel de Icaza, he start GNOME project, he is the co-founder of Ximian. Ximian acquired by Novell in year 2003)

And it give me another view to Miguel. :)