Good day everyone! I"m not 100% sure that this is the right forum for this, however i've been having a problem with Debian that i can't seem to find a solution to. I"m fairly new to Debian and I'm running version 4.0. Everytime i type in a command such as "ls", "chown", etc it gives me the response "could not connect to database. It always executes the command but it leaves me that message prior to displaying any output from the command.

I noticed that it does the same thing when it's booting. I checked the DMESG file and the "could not connect to database" message was no where to be found, however i see it when the machine is booting up. I have both PostgreSQL v7.1 and 8 as well as MySQL running. I'm not sure why three DB's are running but they are. I also have apache and apache2 and some funky gForge program that I'm also having trouble getting rid of. Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks for the help.

Rams

P.S. if i posted this in the wrong forum, can someone recomend another?

Very strange problem!!

First maybe tell us a bit about the background.. where is this box coming from?

I guess it's a server if Gforge is running. Gforge is a great software!

At first glance it looks like every command is logged to a database. But this is insane!

what is the result of these, to be run in a shell
echo $0
type ls
echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH
echo $LD_PRELOAD
cat /etc/ld.so.conf
ls -la /etc/ld.so.*

Hum maybe I'm completly missing the solution here..

Don't worry, your question is perfectly OK here.

Some commands, like locate, need a database to search through. To update this database for locate, issue the "updatedb" command (w/o the ") as root. Probably won't solve your issue though...

Use the aptitude program (or it's graphical sister Synaptic) to install and remove programs and packages. In aptitude, use the / key to enter a search string and the n key to cycle through the results. The + and - keys on the Num. keyboard (with Num-lock on!) install or remove programs. Use the g key twice to actually start the install/removal process.

Yes but /bin/ls doesn't require a database!
Or maybe on vista with their winfs that they were never able to implement

That's why I said *some* commands In fact, I only know about the locate command as it uses a database to store info on all files present on a system.

Well here's what i get from the commands

hostfessionals:/home/rams# echo $0
bash
hostfessionals:/home/rams# type ls
ls is aliased to `ls --color'
hostfessionals:/home/rams# echo $LD_LIBRARY_PATH

hostfessionals:/home/rams# echo $LD_PRELOAD

hostfessionals:/home/rams# cat /etc/ld.so.conf
include /etc/ld.so.conf.d/*.conf
/usr/lib/atlas/sse2
/usr/lib/sse2
/usr/lib/atlas/sse
/usr/lib/sse
/usr/lib/atlas
/usr/lib/grass/lib
hostfessionals:/home/rams# ls -la /etc/ld.so.*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 194769 2007-11-13 09:40 /etc/ld.so.cache
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 133 2007-11-12 16:03 /etc/ld.so.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 53 2007-10-30 18:03 /etc/ld.so.hwcappkgs

/etc/ld.so.conf.d:
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2007-10-30 18:02 .
drwxr-xr-x 199 root root 12288 2007-11-16 15:01 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 64 2007-07-30 16:27 i486-linux-gnu.conf

I installed Debian myself on a extra box i had. I used the netinst CD to install it. I don't know if that was the right cd or not. The "updatedb" command still didn't resolve the problem. But I never knew about it. Just read the man page and it seems pretty useful.

Thanks for all the help so far!

Hmmm! It's not donig it anymore, I'm not sure what the echo statements did, but now i'ts allowing to do everything without displaying that message. THANKS!!!

Yeah I had seen, just being scared that he would change the system with aptitude and loose information.
Sorry

Hummmm more and more strange!
The echo command simply displays your shell so it has no influence.

<paranoiac version>
Maybe this box is being monitored by someone looking at what every command typed.
</>
There would be other commands to run to know what's going on there.
Best is to ask the person who installed it..

I asked you about THIS machine, not another one...
And yes the netinst is the method I use.

Could be still that I'm completly missing the point in this thread.. Maybe nothing critical..

I'm going to keep an eye on it through out the day, and I'll post back here if anything strange happens. I"m mostly using this box to build a web platform so i was immediately lost. I got gForge uninstalled thanks for the help with that as well. I never used that app before so i wasn't to sure of it. But it got some high remarks in the forum.