When comparing ROX Desktop vs Midnight Commander, the Slant community recommends Midnight Commander for most people. In the question“What are the best file managers for UNIX-like systems?” Midnight Commander is ranked 6th while ROX Desktop is ranked 24th. The most important reason people chose Midnight Commander is:
Midnight commander uses the full screen of the terminal in a very efficient way. It displays two panels for files horizontally. On the bottom it has the most useful commands with their corresponding key attached. All of this makes for a very intuitive interface both for beginners and experienced users.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Fast
Programs open noticeably faster with ROX Desktop than with most other Desktop Environments.
Pro Official packages for major distributions
ROX can be built from source like many other solutions or can be installed from official packages available for all the major distributions (Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, openSUSE, Mandriva and Slackware).
Pro Singular load/save dialog
Instead of learning and navigating a multitude of file dialogs, simply drag and drop files between your app and your folders.
Pro Intuitive interface
Midnight commander uses the full screen of the terminal in a very efficient way. It displays two panels for files horizontally. On the bottom it has the most useful commands with their corresponding key attached. All of this makes for a very intuitive interface both for beginners and experienced users.
Pro Can be run in the terminal
Being a terminal application means that it's suited for people who spend most of their time on the terminal because they don't have to switch windows in order to open their file manager. It also means that they can use it both locally and remotely.
Pro Easy to use
Midnight commander is easy and intuitive to use. The most common commands are displayed in the bottom (move, copy, paste, delete, edit, view, make directory). Files can be selected with the arrow keys which move the cursor through them. The Enter key goes down in a directory. To move the focus between two panels the tab key is used.
Pro Lightweight
Pro Stable
Pro Often available in default repository
and hence easy to install by usually package manager.
Pro Lynx-like motion
Cursor+left to go to parent directory, cursor+right to go into child directory.
Pro Well-presented
Cons
Con Discontinued
discontinued since years, only the filemanager, the terminal and zeroinstall are still developed
Con Very ugly UI
Con Redundant default configuration
Because speed is one of the main points and objectives of ROX, the default configuration can be redundant for some and it's design also makes a lot of assumptions on how users prefer to work.
Con File viewer: searching can be quite cumbersome
Especially searching next or previous.
Con No directory bookmarks
Con No easy way to change colors matching certain files
There probably is a possibility, but it is not easy.
Con Quirky and hard to remember shortcuts
E.g. when trying to take the current directory's path to the command line.
Con Lacks drag and drop feature
With midnight commander you cannot drag and drop files to move them around. Instead, you have to do the necessary actions in order to move files around (cut and paste or copy and delete).
Con Can only be run in the terminal
MC lacks a standalone GUI option.