OSX terminal stopped working?

Question

For some reason, many command I try to execute I get command not found I've tried touch, mkdir, sudo, ln -s all the same result

ilyas-mac-pro:~ ilya$ mkdir bla
-bash: mkdir: command not found

slhck · Answer 1 · 2011-08-03 20:28:43Z

up vote 5 down vote accepted

You changed your $PATH (more about it). Try to enter the full path of commands, e.g. /bin/mkdir (or /usr/bin/mkdir, not sure right now).

echo $PATH to see the current path variable value.

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/X11/bin for a sane value.

Check your shell init files, e.g. .profile or .bash_profile for lines like the export PATH=... above and remove them.

slhck
31.4k54162

answered Aug 3 '11 at 15:30

	To add to Daniel's answer, the proper default for $PATH in OSX is /usr/bin – Yitzchak Aug 3 '11 at 16:06
	@Yitzchak: The default PATH on OS X 10.6 is `/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin`. It should always include at least `/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin` since the "standard" system binaries are spread between those 4 directories. – Gordon Davisson Aug 4 '11 at 4:51
	I stand corrected. I haven't used OSX since leopard. – Yitzchak Aug 4 '11 at 15:59

feedback

1 Answer