On Mon, 15 Apr 2002, at 6:29pm, Michael Bovee wrote: > (I'm a born and raised Macintosh user so please bear with me) I bought a > SAMS Teach Yourself book on Unix, but it says nothing about WHY this PATH > thing is even necessary.
A typical Unix system might have a few hundred directories (folders) and tens of thousands of files. Searching all of those every time a command was invoked would be inefficient (and slow). More importantly, there is nothing that says the same file name cannot exist in more than one location (indeed, this is even common). How is the system to know what you want? The answer is the PATH variable, which contains a list of directories (folders) in which the system will automatically look for an unqualified command. Since the system searches the PATH from left-to-right, and different users can have different PATHs, it is even possible for one to change which commands are selected. > (Under MacOS... if I invoke the 'FIND' command it just looks everywhere > all the time) Yes, but that searches for a filename, and presents you with a list, and you get to choose which one you want. If a *program*, OTOH, requests that a particular program (without path) be started, the OS has to look *somewhere*. Under Macintosh System, the OS only searches the "System" folder automatically. This led to many programs being copied to the System folder, just so they would get found automatically. (At least, that was the way it worked under the older versions I was most familiar with. Things may have improved since then.) > I just want to execute a command, or find a file, something 'simple' Well, a lot of that depends on your user interface. Are you using GNOME, KDE, an old-fashioned command-line prompt, or something else entirely? (I could give you some common idioms for the command-line interface, but if you are in one of the graphical user interfaces, there are much more appropriate answers.) > Or more to the point, why would my followed-the-rules install of SuSE > Linux 7.3 not be already configured to allow me to do the very things the > printed manual says should work? Heh. If I had a dollar for every time the manual and reality diverged, I would be a rich sysadmin. :-) > Maybe I should just learn OS X and go away!? :0) That is entirely up to you. Linux is about choice, and that includes the choice to not use it. :-) Indeed, if you are happier with MacOS, then you should probably use it. (But be aware that MacOS X is, in fact, also based on Unix, like Linux is, so you use it either way! ;) > TIA, I appreciate the willingness of experts on this mailing list to stoop > to my level! Since you mention PCMCIA, I guess this is a laptop? If I guess right, you could consider bringing it to one of the user meetings. You will likely find plenty of people willing to answer questions on a one-on-one basis. -- Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
