I came to Unix from an MS-DOS background, where I used Norton Commander a lot. I used to keep an older version of NC – which would fit on a floppy – with me at all times. But on Unix, I ended up not using any of the clones; not even Midnight Commander, which was a key-for key clone, and should have fit me perfectly. It turns out you, or at least I, just don’t use Unix the same way as I did MS-DOS. When I need to manipulate files in any quantity, I use Emacs and its dired-mode.

See especially the “wdired-change-to-wdired-mode” command, now available on the usual “toggle read-only mode” keystroke C-x C-q – it’s magical.

(This has been an 11 year old repost of <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9474384>.)