Wall: Command not found

[jordan4501]

So to start, today is my first day using linux. It's for a university course (operating systems), and we're starting off using PuTTY to SSH into a linux box running SunOS 5.10 and working with basic commands and scripting, etc.

So I was reading about ways to message users, and came across the "wall" command. As I understand it, it's fairly basic and should be quite common. But, when I try to use it, as in

prompt$ wall text text more text

I get "wall: command not found". What's up with that?

[neildomo]

So to start, today is my first day using linux. It's for a university course (operating systems), and we're starting off using PuTTY to SSH into a linux box running SunOS 5.10 and working with basic commands and scripting, etc.

So I was reading about ways to message users, and came across the "wall" command. As I understand it, it's fairly basic and should be quite common. But, when I try to use it, as in

prompt$ wall text text more text

I get "wall: command not found". What's up with that?

Just like Windows, linux has a command path. When you type a command without a directory reference. In your home directory you should have a file called .profile (ls -a to see it). If not, create one and in it put:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin:/$HOME/bin:/usr/local/bin


Save that file. Log out, then back in, and try "which wall". If the wall command is in one of those directories, it will tell you where. Then you can run "wall I am so smart" or whatever. For the path, you can add all the directories that you have commands in, but beware that it looks in them in order. FWIW, you can type "env" to see how your environment is set up.