Any command leads to "command not found" in text console (CTRL+ALT+F(n))

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1

  1. When I use text console by CTRL+ALT+F3 and log in under my user, I can’t use any commands. For example:

    ls produces command not found, and so on.

  2. When I log in under root user - everything works as expected.

  3. When I do sudo su myuser and change the user ty my one from root - works as expected.

I checked PATH and it’s the same for cases 1) and 3), so I guess it’s not the issue with the PATH.

Probably there is a permissions issue, but how can I check it?

2

You have another post where you mention you can’t login … That and this one leads me to speculate you have ownership issues on files and folders in your home directory. Please fix that first.
sudo chown $USER:$USER $HOME
Reboot your system just in case.

3

After @bogdancovaciu suggestion:

Have you made any recent changes to .bashrc or .profile for USER or related system files?

Try:

  • Re-source (. .bashrc or source .bashrc) those files and see if there are any errors
  • echo "${PATH//:/$'\n'}"
  • type -a ls
  • use the full path from the above output /bin/ls -l
4

@bogdancovaciu before and after changing the ownership, I see the same picture:

ls -la /home

drwxr-xr-x 5 root root lost+found
drwxr----- 40 myuser myuser myuser
...

After reboot, it still doesn’t work.

@stargazer before I got all these issues, I installed oh-my-zsh, but I’ve been working for 2 more days after it.

When I do source /home/myuser/.bashrc, when I logged in under my user in text console, I get:

zsh: command not found uname
zsh: command not found shopt
zsh: command not found complete
/usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion:1567: parse error near `|`
/home/myuser/.bashrc:type:66: bad option -P
5

I don’t know how you set your bash or zsh, or if you mixed something related to them. Make sure if you use zsh that you do this:
cp /etc/skel/.zshrc ~/
chsh -s /bin/zsh
And reboot to make sure.

If you use bash, then either you fix the typo in your .bashrc at line 66, or you do:
cp /etc/skel/.bashrc ~/
chsh -s /bin/bash
…

1 Like
6

The .bashrc is the default one, installed with Manjaro KDE, I didn’t change it and it works well when I do sudo su myuser from root account.

So, I tried to change my default shell, just by running chsh -s /bin/sh and now it works!!! All the commands are now available, with syntax highlighting (as it was by default).

Moreover, I can now log in without errors to my profile (Login screen freezes after entering login/password, but works for root user)

Seems like zsh somehow breaks the system, but I can’t figure out how and in which way

7

I have never done that in my life, never had to do it. :slight_smile: Don’t know the end of it. Might test it one day.

8

I’ve never used this syntax either :slight_smile:

Does it make any difference if you use, sudo su - myuser or sudo su --login myuser or sudo -i -u myuser.

Notice these are going to create a login shell, thus read the specific login files.

What’s the output of chsh -l.