[ale] ubuntu install has no $PATH?

[Jim Kinney]

A friend who is a very green Linux user installed Ubuntu (latest whatever
version) and went to install adobe flash. It required some command line-fu
(which he didn't have) so he called me.

-> I'm not an ubuntu person <-

So I was trying to find out what file type he was trying to install so I
asked hi to open a terminal (he was in the normal X session) and run ls and
tell me the name of the file he downloaded.

It errored with "no command or file by than name". So I had him do a "pwd".
Same error. Ditto on "echo $PATH"

W   T   F    !!!!!

the command he _needed_ to run was sudo apt-get flash.....   but he couldn't
recall if it was saved in the Downloads directory or the home directory. So
he tried to cd and it failed.

Unfortunately, we were talking over the cell phones while I was in a busy
and loud store so literally spelling out each letter of a working PATH
"alpha bravo charlie" style was not going to happen.

Now I have been pretty harsh on messed up distro stupids in the past but I
can't fathom how an install could complete and leave no working path
variables set.

Any ideas how during an install (that appeared to conclude correctly) Ubuntu
could have left off PATH? More importantly, ideas on how to NOT recreate
this?

-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III

As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to
consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they
please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.
- *2011 Noam Chomsky

http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
*
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