far2l

far2l

Linux fork of FAR Manager v2 (http://farmanager.com/)
Works also on macOS and BSD (but latter is not regularly tested) BETA VERSION.
Use at your own risk!

Plug-ins that are currently working: ADB (the external adb binary is required to work, see: README), Advanced compare, align, arclite (now as experimental version which partially more effective than multiarc; arclite disabled by default, to enable manually turn on F9->Options->Plugins configuration->ArcLite->[x] Enable Arclite plugin), autowrap, Calculator, colorer, drawline, editcase, editorcomp, edsort, filecase, gitgutter, hexitor, ImageViewer, incsrch, inside, jumpword (see: README), memo (see: README), MTP (see: README), multiarc, NetRocks (SFTP/SCP/SHELL/FTP/FTPS/SMB/NFS/WebDAV/AWS S3), OpenWith, Python (optional scripting support, see readme and info), SimpleIndent, tmppanel, Transformer (generic external-command text transformations for the editor and file panels), truncate.

FreeBSD/MacOS (Cirrus CI):

License: GNU/GPLv2

Used code from projects

• FAR for Windows and some of its plugins
• WINE
• ANSICON
• Portable UnRAR
• 7z ANSI-C Decoder
• utf-cpp by ww898

Screenshots

Jump To:

• Getting Started
• Installing, Running
• Building, Contributing, Hacking
• Compatible Terminals and SSH clients
• Useful 3rd-party extras
• Community packages & binaries
• See also (in external documents):
  • Change log
  • Releases
  • Python plugin readme and Short information about each Python plugins/files
  • Notes on porting and FAR Plugin API changes
  • Coding style
  • Testing
  • DUMPER

Getting Started

Note: Far2l uses keyboard shortcuts in the tradition of the Far Manager for Windows, but some of them (Alt+F1, Alt+F2, Alt+F7, Ctrl+arrows, etc.) usually exclusively used in desktop environment GNOME, KDE, Xfce, macOS etc. and in terminal emulators. To work with these keys in far2l you need to release keyboard shortcuts globally in the environment settings (see #2326, #2731, under GNOME you can use dconf-editor org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings to view and change global keybindings) or use far2l lifehacks: Sticky controls via Ctrl+Space or Alt+Space or Exclusively handle hotkeys option in the Input settings (see details in built-in far2l help).

UI Backends

FAR2L has base UI Backends (see details in built-in help section UI backends):

• GUI|WX (uses wxWidgets) or GUI|SDL: works in graphics mode, ideal UX (might add dependencies to your desktop environment, e.g. wxWidgets toolkit and related packages);

• TTY|Xi: works in terminal mode, requires a dependency on a couple of X11 libraries (to access clipboard and to get state of all keyboard modifiers), almost perfect UX;

• TTY|X: works in terminal mode, uses X11 to access clipboard, all keyboard works via terminal;

• TTY: plain terminal mode, no X11 dependencies, UX with some restrictions (works fully when running in the terminal emulators, which provide clipboard access and have their advanced keyboard protocols).

Note: When running, far2l automatically downgrades if its components are not installed (or system libs are not available): GUI ⇒ TTY|Xi ⇒ TTY|X ⇒ TTY. To force run only specific backend use in command line: for GUI: far2l --notty; for TTY|Xi use in command line: far2l --tty; for TTY|X: far2l --tty --nodetect=xi; for plain TTY: far2l --tty --nodetect=x (see details via far2l --help). If your far2l is compiled with SDL you can run far2l --SDL also.

Note: Using OSC 52 in TTY/TTY|X_: to interact with the system clipboard you must not forget to enable OSC 52 in both the FAR2L settings (Options⇒Interface settings⇒Use OSC52 to set clipboard data, which is shown in the dialog only if far2l runs in TTY/TTY|X mode and all other options for clipboard access are unavailable; you can run far2l --tty --nodetect to force it not to use other clipboard options), and in terminal settings option OSC 52 must be allowed (by default, OSC 52 is disabled in some terminals for security reasons; OSC 52 in many terminals is implemented only for the copy mode, and paste from the terminal goes by bracketed paste mode).

Note: Using TTY under Wayland and OSC 52 under Wayland: TTY X|Xi in --tty works incorrectly. You need to fully disable it to use OSC 52 for proper clipboard integration; you need to run far2l --tty --nodetect=x, then OSC 52 setting option will appear in Interface Settings, and you can enable it, as described in a chapter above. Clipboard in wx-gui is working correctly.

Installing, Running

Note: packages in official repositories may be very outdated, actual binaries or portable see in Community packages & binaries.

Debian/Ubuntu binaries from the official repositories

• GUI|WX backend (Debian since far2l 2.6.4 / Ubuntu 25.04+)

  bash复制

  apt install far2l-wx

• TTY X/Xi backends only (Debian / Ubuntu 23.10+)

  bash复制

  apt install far2l

• TTY backends only – do not install X11 dependencies and dependencies used in the NetRocks plugin (Debian since far2l 2.6.5~ds-3 / Ubuntu 25.10+)

  bash复制

  apt install --no-install-recommends far2l

Debian has far2l in sid (unstable) / 14 forky (testing) / 13 trixie / 12 bookworm-backports; Ubuntu since 23.10. Details about versions in the official repositories see in https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=far2l or https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=far2l

Note: since far2l 2.6.4 Debian/Ubuntu packages build with python subplugins.

Note: in some old Debian/Ubuntu you can obtain far2l packages corresponding to the latest distributions via backport mechanism (see info in Debian Backports and Ubuntu Backports).

A simple sid back port should be as easy as (build your own binary deb from the official source deb package, required install dependencies):

# you will find the latest dsc link at http://packages.debian.org/sid/far2l
dget http://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/f/far2l/2.6.3~beta+ds-1.dsc
dpkg-source -x *.dsc
cd far2l-*/
debuild
# cd .. and install your self built far2l*.deb

Homebrew binaries or source (macOS and Linux)

Homebrew is a package manager with some benefits over traditional approaches.

First, install Homebrew if not yet installed:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

TTY only, latest compact ve