Why aren't common commands working?
 

Hello-

I just installed Fedora 2 last night, and I seem to be having a PCMCIA problem where it is not recognizin my network cards. It seems to be able to identify the model, but I get a message on boot that the 'device is not present,' as well as when I try to enable the card through the gui. furthermore, there is no acknowledgement beeps when I plug a card in after boot. My ethernet worked when I installed core 1.

I'm having a huge problem with terminal, though. I see commands suggested all over the place--lspci, cardctl, modprobe, ifconfig--but when I try to use any of these I get a bash message telling me the command is not found.

What am I doing wrong? Do I need to be in a certain directory? I have the same failure in root, /dev/, /sbin/, and /etc/.

Please help! I am getting very frustrated. I expected some hardware issues (it's a laptop), but if I can't even use basic commands, how am I supposed to fix anything??? I have two books in front of me, but neither is specifying directories for any of these commands, nor have any message boards.

Hi,

If the command returns "not found", this could be :
- the command does not exist
- the path is not good.

Your path depends on your user. these commands need the root Path, so please begin by typing : su - and the root password. Don't forget the -, or you will not execute the profile and still have the PATH of your user.

"su - root" is the same thing that "su -"

Maybe this helps,

Philippe

whereis
 

The command "whereis" checks the most likley places for the command you give it.

If for some reason your $PATH is messed up, use

Thanks....a friend pointed out to me though 'su' is enough to log in as root, i need su - root to set up the shell properly.

My card still doesn't work, but at least now I can use tools to find the problem!

Thanks!

Futhermore, linux only searchs directories in the path enviornment but not the current working directory for a command.

./ is a shortcut for current working directory.

Right ... except if you put " . " in your $PATH ;-)

Philippe

from a term window or command line type:
this will tell you what your default shell is.........IE
/bin/bash, /bin/csh, /bin/tsh----------etc.

Oooo....good to know
 

That sounds *very* useful....thanks!!!

So much to learn! :scratch:

:)

Put " . " in the PATH is not a good idea.