How to Install Ranger Terminal File Manager on Linux

Ranger is a command line-based file manager with VI key bindings. It provides a minimalistic and nice curses interface with a view on the directory hierarchy. In this tutorial, we'll walk through the process of installing and configuring Ranger on Debian, Ubuntu and CentOS.

Installing Ranger

Before installing Ranger, you must first install make, git and vim. The former two will be needed for installation, and vim is necessary for Ranger to open as a text editor.

CentOS/Fedora/RHEL:

sudo yum update -y
sudo yum install make git vim -y

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get install make git vim -y

To install Ranger manually, you will need to download the latest Ranger repository from Github:

git clone https://github.com/hut/ranger.git

Build and install Ranger:

cd ranger
sudo make install

Configuring Ranger

Run Ranger for a moment:

ranger

Exit with Shift + Q. This will allow Ranger to create its default configuration directory in ~/.config/ranger

Now copy the generated configuration files with the following command:

ranger --copy-config=all

The output will look something like this:

creating: /home/user1/.config/ranger/apps.py
creating: /home/user1/.config/ranger/commands.py
creating: /home/user1/.config/ranger/rc.conf
creating: /home/user1/.config/ranger/options.py
creating: /home/user1/.config/ranger/scope.sh

Start Ranger:

ranger

After starting it, the first thing you will notice is a window layout, the left column shows the parent directory, the middle column the content and selection of the current directory and the right column child directories and files or a preview of the currently selected file.