Extremely Confused Newbie (ecn syndrome)

jclinansmith · 01-21-2001, 06:31 PM

I have installed linux 7.0 cleanly. no other operating systems exist on the pc. i get tothe log on prompt and log on root and password. but from there, i cant do anything. any command i enter is command not found. can somebody pleaz help me out with this? i would really appreciate that. thanx.

jeremy · 01-21-2001, 07:10 PM

Hmm..very strange. What happens if you type 'echo $PATH'?

jclinansmith · 01-21-2001, 07:42 PM

well, i typed the command and it just popped me back at the command prompt again. [server@localhost server]$
go figure. this is my first experience with linux, i knew it was gonna be a little tougher than win. lol

jeremy · 01-21-2001, 07:56 PM

Sounds like your path is not set. What shell are you using? If you are not sure type 'echo $0'.

jclinansmith · 01-21-2001, 08:00 PM

typed in echo $0 and the next line said bash.

jeremy · 01-21-2001, 08:05 PM

Type the following command and then see if things work better for you.

Code:

export PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin

You can also add any other directory you would like (You may want to add /sbin and /usr/sbin for example).

jclinansmith · 01-21-2001, 08:10 PM

well, maybe its time for me to try caldera open instead. lol. I typed in the command verbatim and it just goes to the same command prompt [server@localhost server]$

by the way, thanx for the reply's. anything helps me at this point of time.

jeremy · 01-21-2001, 08:23 PM

You should go right back to a prompt. Originally you said "any command i enter is command not found". If you type one of those commands do you still get command not found? What commands are you typing?

jclinansmith · 01-21-2001, 08:37 PM

just looking thru some web sites and other groups for some help as well. i got stuff like /sbin/startx. someone told me to enter dir, /gui,startkde,startx and others. those i get no command found.

jeremy · 01-21-2001, 08:53 PM

If you want to execute a command by just typing its name, the program must be in your path. For example - startx is usually located in /usr/X11R6/bin. To run startx either type /usr/X11R6/bin/startx or put /usr/X11R6/bin in your path. You can always see your current path by typing 'echo $PATH'.

jclinansmith · 01-21-2001, 09:08 PM

well, i hope i am doing this right. i typed in /usr/x11r6/bin and ......./startx from root and it tells me "no such file or directory". i gotta be doing something wrong here.

jeremy · 01-21-2001, 09:12 PM

OK. Try this. Type "whereis startx". Then cd to that directory and type "./startx".

jclinansmith · 01-21-2001, 09:15 PM

ok, typed in whereis startx.
"start x:"
then dropped me back at the root. cd to startx and states "no such file or directory". that sounds bad.

jeremy · 01-21-2001, 09:37 PM

startx should be in one of two places. Either /usr/X11R6/bin/startx or /usr/bin/X11/startx. Try cd'ing to /usr/X11R6/bin and /usr/bin/X11. From in one of these directories type ./startx (Try it once in each diretory). If you do not have either directory you may not have installed X.

jclinansmith · 01-21-2001, 09:39 PM

doing a reinstall to make sure i got this right. may have screwed up during install. i will post back with results. thanx