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Laurelino Braendel

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Aug 3, 2024, 1:29:50 AM8/3/24

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I'm searching for a good filemanager in style of the classic norton commander 2 panel design? Since i had my best experiences with Total Commander in Windows, which one would you recommend for use in Ubuntu?

I had the same question some time ago. And I tried all of the mentioned commanders. Krusader is by far the best one but I didn't want to have whole bunch of KDE libraries installed. Gnome-Commander cripples system theme in order to get some more speed (I guess) but it doesn't support tabs. Mucommander is Java based and lacks integration with system (and it's Java based, did I mention that already). There's also TuxCommander which (at the moment) is not listed but that thing was made using Borland Kylix (now dead project) so its development is stopped or at least doomed. Midnight Commander is really really good, but am not that much of a terminal fan.

So, I did the only thing I could do... started making my own. Now I know how this sounds and am not going to praise it. It is still faaar from finished but I got some basics done. Also I try to add interesting and useful things to it. For example you can create terminal tab from the current tabs location. There's an option for create file as well as create directory. Oh, and command line history is loaded from .bash_history (one of these days am going to make 2 way sync with that file).

A piece of advice:
You might want to adjust your expectations. For the sake of your nerves. Total Commander has set the bar high. When such statement is being made people usually think of some power-user features most of TC users haven't seen but in fact this statement applies also to core usability features that are more commonly used. That said it's wise not to expect a replication of vast majority of core TC features in its Linux alternatives. An example: 2 years ago I installed Gnome Commander, Krusader and one other file manager on Linux. Neither of them provided means (e.g. custom column) to sort files by last access date.

I'd also recommend refraining from recommending or even using applications that are no longer actively developed. It has nothing to do with them being buggy or insecure. It's just to make them go away faster and to avoid frustration in the future, when you get used to an application, then find a showstopper bug, just to learn that it will not be fixed ever. So please review the dates of the latest updates for respective applications and take them into consideration when choosing your future no. 1 app.

As for GUI managers, I used Altap/Servant Salamander. Total Commander is also fine, but Altap was unique in many ways, lovely GUI to work in, easily extendible with scripting (JS, VBS, Python COM) accepts major Total Command plugins and performance just couldn't be better.
There is project hosted on Launchpad which offers file manager similar to Total Commander - Double Commander:

Double Commander is a free cross platform open source file manager with two panels side by side. You can easily explore, download and edit any file on your Synology NAS. In this step by step guide I will show you how to install Double Commander on your Synology NAS using Docker.

Go to File Station and open the docker folder. Inside the docker folder, create one new folder and name it doublecommander. Follow the instructions in the image below.
Note: Be careful to enter only lowercase, not uppercase letters.

The installation process can take up to a few seconds/minutes. It will depend on your Internet speed connection. Now open your browser and type in -ip-address:3278 If everything goes right, you will see the Double Commander Login page. Type in your own CUSTOM_USER and PASSWORD that you have previously created at STEP 6 then click Sign In. Follow the instructions in the image below.