ifconfig amounst other commands doesn't work

steveman2000 · 10-21-2005, 01:33 PM

hi,

ifconfig doesn't work. Neither do many other commands. When I go into /sbin and type ./ifconfig then it does. However there are only very few items there even. Any ideas?

I've looked at Path variables etc and cant make a great load of sense out of them. Whatever i install doesnt work either.

modprobe is one whihc doesnt work either unless using the ./modprobe thing.

please help!!!

michaelk · 10-21-2005, 01:52 PM

Unlike windows, bash only searchs the environment path for a command.
echo $PATH will display your path environment. /sbin isn't usually in a regular users path.

BTW ./ is a shortcut for current working directory.
You can always use the full path i.e. /sbin/ifconfig

If you used the su command then use su - instead. The - says to use root's path instead of the path of the regular user.

steveman2000 · 10-21-2005, 02:05 PM

hi,

Cheers for that, doesnt explain why all teh commands that are supsoed to be there are not but it gives me a further insight into what on earth is happening.

As a guess im gonna have to lookup all the commands that dont work and install them right?

michaelk · 10-21-2005, 03:20 PM

What other commands are not working?

chadl · 10-21-2005, 03:42 PM

Some of the commands require that you are root or they will not run. The ones that require this are in sbin, however some of them that are in sbin do not require root privilages to run, such as ifconfig.

This fix? Try running them as root (su). Unless you are already running them as root, and I misread your question.

jrdioko · 10-21-2005, 03:44 PM

And, as michaelk said, you need to type "su -" instead of "su" if you want to be able to run those programs without typing the full path.

steveman2000 · 10-21-2005, 04:15 PM

hi,

Appologies yep your right! Arggg i hate being a newbie but hey in time i won't be (lets hope). I have now progressed onto the next stage of the installing ndiswrapper. At the moment it seems the link from the kernel to the kernel source is wrong and ive tried all sorts!!! There is another post about it.

Thanks for teh help though..... (i was stuck on that one for too long!)