Midnight Commander 4.7.5 spk

January 22, 2011 zebulon 20 comments

A new tool.

I just finished to tweak my build of Midnight Commander file manager. It can be downloaded here. This is my first try to compile mc, and as I don’t use this software for long, I might have missed some of its features while testing. I was able to access all the archives I’ve encountered (tar, gz, bz2, xz, zip, rar, 7z), and do ftp, along the usual copy/paste/move and delete operations.

The package is about 11MB, and the install size around 26MB. There is no integration with DSM, as it is purely a command line tool. It shall support all the NAS from the x07 to x11 series. Tested successfully on a DS408 (ppc854x) and a 210j (88f6281).

Build with midnight commander 4.7.5 and patch 2282, glib 2.26.1, slang 2.2.3, ncurses terminfo db from ubuntu, file 5.05, xz 5.0.0, bzip2 1.0.6, and zlib 1.2.5. No changes were made to the source code, only usual build configuration. Specific scripts to the Synology DSM were also added.

As always, comments and remarks welcome, enjoy!

#1 | Written by Uncle Sam about 1 year ago.

I have DS211 (88f6282). “unable to start the package”.
#2 | Written by zebulon about 1 year ago.

This package is not intended to be run from the DSM, but from the shell (telnet or ssh on your NAS). I should have mention that, sorry.
#3 | Written by Zyxmon about 1 year ago.

I do not need this package, because I compile this package with changes in the source code. I want to share these changes with zebulon.
More information (in Russian) can be found here – http://forum.zyxmon.org/topic50-nas-synology-midnight-commander-i-russkii-yazyk.html

The changes in the source code are needed for mc to display correctly utf8 nonansi chars in file and directory names, in the viewer and editor.
Here is the description – http://www.midnight-commander.org/ticket/2282
The patch files for mc 4.7.5 are here – http://www.zyxmon.org/synology/mc475.tar.gz

The second path is needed only for synology NASes with Marvell Kirkwood mv5281 CPU.
Here is the description – http://www.midnight-commander.org/ticket/2401

The third patch is trivial – the paths for uzip and zip in extfs.d/uzip should be fixed to pint to the correct location.
#4 | Written by zebulon about 1 year ago.

@Zyxmon:
I’ve read through your posts in the Russian forum thanks to Google translate.
* I’ve applied the patch concerning the UTF-8 encoding (as described in the mc ticket 2282). Tested and working in the file lists, but not in the file viewer and editor, due to lack of material.
* I passed on the second one, I will take a look on it and integrate it in the next build.
* I tried to configure correctly most of the extfs.d/ files to use the tools available on the NAS, and providing some missing tools (like bzip2, xz, and file).

Can I kindly ask you to test my package? I’ve seen that your compilation is in the ipk format, and they should be installable on the same machine without trouble. This spk will install in /usr/local/mc, with a link from /usr/local/bin/mc to /usr/local/mc/bin/mc. I would be very thankful if you can take a few minutes to do so.
#5 | Written by Zyxmon about 1 year ago.

I’ll test and write this week. Probably some of Russian users will leave their comments here – http://www.synology-forum.ru/index.php?showtopic=38&view=getnewpost
#6 | Written by Chris about 1 year ago.

What are the differences between this package and the mc package I can install via ipkg?
#7 | Written by zebulon about 1 year ago.

From the functionality point of view, they should be the same.

This spk has no dependencies, it comes with all libraries and binaries required for mc. It is not invasive, no standard libraries neither binaries will be replaced duringthe installation process. The uninstalaltion shall also be clean, leaving the system unchanged.

To use the ipk package, you first need to install the ipk boot strap and then the mc ipk. From my experience, it changes a few original files from the NAS, and I personally don’t like this. Also, as I understood from various forum readings, not all dependencies are documented, and you have to install some additional packages by hand to make it work, plus some tweaking of a few files.

That’s why I decided to package Midnight Commander as a spk.
#8 | Written by Zyxmon about 1 year ago.

From technical point of view ipk packages are compiled with rpath option pointing to /opt/lib
This means that there can be to sets of similar libraries – one from synology, the other from optware (ipkg). This makes optware rather portable – the packages are the same for QNAP and Synology (for my arm Marvell mv6281 platform). As for changing original files – only one or two are changed. Bootstrap can be easily removed from the system (manually).
There is a different approach for adding software for embedded linux systems called opkg. There is no two sets of libraries in opkg systems. I am afraid there is no bootstrap and repository for opkg packages for synology. At least I do not know one.
#9 | Written by samp about 1 year ago.

Many Thanks! Successful install on my DS410j DSM 3.0-1354!
#10 | Written by zebulon about 1 year ago.

Hum, the second patch from Zyxmon is needed for NAS without IPv6 support, like the older ARM based models (some of the x07 models). A new version will be available tonight, with the patch from http://www.midnight-commander.org/changeset/a290a0b557922c0969dddb42af904e1fe659d56a
#11 | Written by Gladiator about 1 year ago.

Gives an error “Unable to start package”
Model Synology DS107
#12 | Written by zebulon about 1 year ago.

@Gladiator: This is normal, as explained, this package is not intended to run in the background, but called through the shell (using ssh or telnet to connect to the NAS. If you don’t know shat ssh or telnet are, you don0t need this package.
#13 | Written by Diaoul about 1 year ago.

Hi Zebulon,

Have you encoutered the folowing problem when cross compiling ncurses 5.7 ?
tset.c:(.text+0×1130): undefined reference to `_nc_is_abs_path’

I can’t cross compile ncurses 5.7 for all arch except 88f5281 and maybe another one. Got the error with 88f628x toolchain.
How did you solve this issue ?

Thanks
#14 | Written by Zyxmon about 1 year ago.

@Diaoul
I prefer to build ipk packages as described here
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Optware/AddAPackageToOptware

Ncurses are compiled with no problems with optware scripts.
#15 | Written by zebulon about 1 year ago.

@Diaoul: I didn’t compile ncurses, mc is compiled with slang, and there is only the terminfo database that comes from the ncurses package. But the function _nc_is_abs_path() is defined in tic.h and implemented in access.c. Check if you these file is included in your link, be it explicitly or included in a library.
#16 | Written by Zyxmon about 1 year ago.

I have tested this package on my DS110J – it works.
#17 | Written by Zyxmon about 1 year ago.

One more installation success is reported here (in Russian)
http://forum.zyxmon.org/post349.html#p349
#18 | Written by darlon17 about 1 year ago.

Hi zebulon, I tested your package on my ds411+ but doesn’t work for me.

wich syno did you test ?
#19 | Written by Kuranes about 1 year ago.

Hi. Works perfectly on ds108j, thanks so much !
#20 | Written by gm about 4 months ago.

Hello!
Have you compile it (mc) on NAS (ds 110+ ) or on pc (a lunux one)?
I tried to copile it on NAS and it was compiled. Unfortunatteluy it has not started(
I found info for a library which could help
sudo apt-get install autopoint libslang2-dev
unfortunattely where is not such library for the synology nas..
I tried to comille it on my computer (ubuntu 11) but it seems to be rocket science)).
Could you please provide some info?
i would like to have some hints how to compile mc for synology on the linux pc, and which /.configure keys have you used.
Thanks,

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