[ale] ubuntu install has no $PATH?

[Tim Watts]

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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