[Novalug] terminal mystery

Jon LaBadie novalugml@jgcomp.com
Sun Feb 8 01:25:34 EST 2015


On Sun, Feb 08, 2015 at 12:18:10AM -0500, Bonnie Dalzell via Novalug wrote:
> 
> when i start a terminal (does not matter if it is terminator or xterm) from
> an icon or from a command line in a terminal it opens with this echoed in it
> initially
> 
> No command 'bin' found, did you mean:
>  Command 'win' from package 'wily' (universe)
>  Command 'bino' from package 'bino' (universe)
>  Command 'tin' from package 'tin' (universe)
>  Command 'bip' from package 'bip' (universe)
>  Command 'bing' from package 'bing' (universe)
>  Command 'bins' from package 'bins' (universe)
> bin: command not found
> cgihome: command not found
> 
> I am going nuts trying to figure out where the command to open the termianl
> and try to run a non-command ("bin") is hiding.
> 
> trying to do a web search has not been very useful

Your system probably has several virtual terminals available
with Ctrl-Alt-Fn# where # is 2-6.  If you login to one of
them do you see the same messages?  Or if in a running xterm
does "bash -l" give the same?

If yes, it is likely coming from your start-up files, .profile
and/or .bashrc (or whatever your's are called - I use ksh.

Sounds like something is messing with the slashes in a string
like /bin/some_cmd and converting them to spaces.  Perhaps sed
is editing a string and then trying to execute the result.

Or do you play with the IFS variable?  IFS defines the characters
that are considered "whitespace" in some expansions.  If your IFS
variable contains a "/", then in a sequence like

  cmd=/bin/who
  $cmd

the expanded variable might look like " bin who", i.e. a command bin.

Jon
-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  novalugml@jgcomp.com
 11226 South Shore Rd		(703) 787-0688 (H)
 Reston, VA  20190		(703) 935-6720 (C)



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