If you log in to your Linux server via Putty SSH and start Midnight Commander (MC) you might get garbled lines like this:
The problem is not with Linux or MC but with Putty using “incorrect” character set. So what you need to do is click on the top-left corner of Putty window (just left of word “mc” and that horrible black smudge I made to hide my server name) and when menu appear select Change Settings and then navigate to Window -> Translation and change Remote character set to UTF-8 :
Click Apply, restart Midnight Commander and it will now look much better with proper border lines:
That’s it. If you still have problems then open Putty Reconfiguration window again, navigate to Window->Appearance and try changing the font used in terminal window. I use Courier New.