hi! I'm very new to Linux but I've been a wintel admin for a number of years. Frankly I'm intimidated by many of the questions even in the newbie forum. I will be grateful for your patience and help.

Running Slackware.

Most commands I enter in Linux are met with the "command not found" error. I understand I can run linux commands by learning where the executable files are and pointing to the proper directory every time but I'm hoping to save time by telling Linux to search in all the common directories for a command before telling me "command not found".

For example entering "ss" when I'm in my home directory should run "ss" rather than kicking back an error.

How can I accomplish this?

I do not know what is ss (there is no such command), so probably the message is ok.
Otherwise there is a variable, named PATH and you should set it properly to find your commands
https://www.linux.com/learn/docs/ldp/682-Path

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you! this is just what I needed.

It turned out I needed to add some directories to the default path in /etc/profile

@pan64
ss comes with iproute2. Its the new netstat.

1 members found this post helpful.

I see. Thanks.