Coming over from SuSE 10.0 (still on my desktop) to fc5 on this laptop I have discoved (to myself) odd terminal behavior under fc5 (2.6.16-1.2122_FC5 kernel).

I was setting up by wireless card [in fc5] and noticed that when I "su" into root the OS tells me it can not find "lspci", "ifconfig", or "iwconfig". I presume there are other command as well, just have not tried them with this install yet.

Just to pinch myself, I did use "whoami" to ensure I was root. Confirmed - yes I was root.

Anyway when I log out of my User login and re-log in as root, all of the above command work perfectly.

I know in SuSE 10.0 you ARE root when you "su". So this strikes me as very strange.

Is this a default fc5 setting, or is a link screwey on this install? If it is how to I fix this little annoying issue. At least it is not a major problem. Again this works as it should when I log in as root and not "su" to root.

Thanx

[me@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost me]# whoami
root
[root@localhost me]# lspci
bash: lspci: command not found
[root@localhost me]# iwconfig
bash: iwconfig: command not found
[root@localhost me]# ifconfig
bash: ifconfig: command not found
[root@localhost me]#

????? just leaves me wondering

either "su -" or edit your .bash_profile (a hidden file in home dir)

By default SuSE includes /sbin in PATH for users and by default Fedora doesn't (as a vidiot-proofing precaution). That's really the only difference. Nothing is broken.

Here's my .bash_profile

[climber@localhost ~]$ cat .bash_profile
# .bash_profile

# Get the aliases and functions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
. ~/.bashrc
fi

# User specific environment and startup programs

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin

export PATH
unset USERNAME

Hi Duster

I think you need to use su - (su with hyphen), what this does is make the shell a login shell and so it sets all the environment variables associated with the new user, so that you truly become that user, whereas with su on its own does not set the environment variables.

One of effects this has is setting path environment variable, allowing you to (for example) execute stuff that is in /etc/sbin without specifying the directory explicitly.

Another thing for your info - su is an abbreviation for substitute user (not super user), so you can use to substitute to any user like this:

su - username

also check out man su and info su

Hope this helps you out

David Saunders

Wow I just posted this. Thank you for the quick response. "su-" works. Will look into editing.

I could not have asked for a better response. Was wondering about this - in case with all the updates a little thing went wrong.

thank you again.