helpful text needs rewording

Andrew Mathenge mathenge at gmail.com
Thu Nov 29 16:30:25 UTC 2007


I don't know why you're getting the "-su: adduser..." error. On my system,
the shell (bash 3.2.25) displays the message as:

       -bash: adduser: command not found

However, I think that "could not be executed" as the error message would
also be a bit confusing. It would imply that there was something wrong with
the program, when actually, there's nothing wrong. It's just that the
command "is not in your path so it can't be executed," even though, "it
exists on your system."

In any case, this is a shell error message though perhaps a description of
how the command shell works with reference to the PATH variable and how
programs are executed from the command line might be something that could be
new-user documentation fit for Ubuntu.

Andrew.

On Nov 29, 2007 10:54 AM, Carl Karsten <carl at personnelware.com> wrote:

> I know what I did wrong.  This is not a support issue.  I understand what
> the
> text is telling me, but I think it could be worded better.
>
> juser at vaio:~$ adduser carl admin
> Command 'adduser' is available in '/usr/sbin/adduser'
> The command could not be located because '/usr/sbin' is not included in
> the PATH
> environment variable.
> This is most likely caused by the lack of administrative priviledges
> associated
> with your user account.
> -su: adduser: command not found
>
> "is available" and "could not be located" is a contradiction.   How about
> "could
> not be executed" ?
>
> also "priviledges" should be spelled "privileges".
>
> "-su: adduser: command not found" looks like an attempt to show me the
> sudo
> command or something.
>
> Carl K
>
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