[ale] ubuntu install has no $PATH?

[Jim Kinney]

Knowing my friend as I do, I'm leaning towards this as the root cause.
Another ID10t error.
On Jul 25, 2011 10:19 AM, "Tim Watts" <tim at cliftonfarm.org> wrote:
> On Sun, 2011-07-24 at 22:50 -0400, Jim Kinney wrote:
>> 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"
>>
>
> That sounds like an error msg from window's cmd not bash. Given the iffy
> communication quality of the conversation, if I had to bet, my money
> goes to: He wasn't in a shell at all.
>
>
>> 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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>
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