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I am connected to my host via ssh and I keep getting the error that a command is not found. So, I checked out the /bin directory and sure enough, the command I need is not there. How can I add it and is there a place online that lists all of the available commands which can be added?

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What is the "command" you are looking for? – vy32 Aug 31 '11 at 21:16
@vy32 I am looking for the gaa command. – Presto Aug 31 '11 at 21:18
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For reference, the stuff in /bin is not "bash commands"; they're just programs that happen to be in one of the directories in $PATH so that bash (or any other shell, for that matter) can find them. The only real "bash commands" are the builtins you can get info on by typing help. – cHao Aug 31 '11 at 21:18
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what is the program gaa? – Foo Bah Aug 31 '11 at 21:19
when I try to make install the mcyrpt function for php I get the following error make[1]: gaa: Command not found So, I am trying to install gaa – Presto Aug 31 '11 at 21:19
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4 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

As other posters have mentioned, your /bin directory is not the only place your computer keeps installed software.

Most flavors of *nix have some kind of packaging system to make it easier to install things. To find out what version you are using, type uname -a which will give you an output something like

Linux version 2.6.32-33-generic (buildd@zirconium) (gcc version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5) ) #72-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 29 21:08:37 UTC 2011

The last segment is your version and the release date. Then google something like "install software for version" or "version package manager" and you should get some useful information.

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Thanks, this is the output (gcc version 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-44)) #1 SMP Wed Apr 1 09:10:25 EDT 2009 So would my *nix flavor be Red Hat? – Presto Aug 31 '11 at 22:19
Yes. "Flavor" is a colloquial term not a technical one, so to be precise, you have the Red Hat linux distribution. – Yitzchak Aug 31 '11 at 22:31
Yes. BTW, "flavor" is a colloquial term not technical a one. To be precise, you are using the Red Hat linux distribution. – Yitzchak Aug 31 '11 at 22:34
After following your suggestions, I have found the method to install files on my Red Hat version. After installing all the packages for mcyrpt, I get the following message warning: mcrypt-2.6.4-2.i386.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 0bf3040b What does this output mean? It seems like the installation was not successful am I correct? – Presto Sep 1 '11 at 17:21
At last!!! I finally got everything to install. Thanks to everyone for the assistance. – Presto Sep 1 '11 at 18:17
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up vote 1 down vote

is this GAA Argument Analyzer (Sourceforge) what you are looking for? It says "The GAA Argument Analyser helps programmers to analyze the arguments given to their program from the command line."

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That looks promising. I am downloading now to try it out. – Presto Aug 31 '11 at 21:38
When I try to install this I get the following error: WARNING: aclocal-1.8' is needed, and you do not seem to have it handy on your system. You might have modified some files without having the proper tools for further handling them. Check the README' file, it often tells you about the needed prerequirements for installing this package. You may also peek at any GNU archive site, in case some other package would contain this missing aclocal-1.8' program.` – Presto Aug 31 '11 at 21:57
do you have automake installed? I'm not sure, but aclocal might be part of that – marto Aug 31 '11 at 22:04
I got the current version of automake, but there is no configure file to install. So, I uploaded and unzipped. I now see that in the share folder there are the aclocal files. Where do I need to move them? – Presto Aug 31 '11 at 22:25
Depending on the system you ssh'd into, you will have to issue commands like "yum install automake" or similar. You just downloaded the source code for automake, you'd have to compile that first etc. You will have to read up on your distributions manuals reg Installation etc. – marto Aug 31 '11 at 22:45
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up vote 1 down vote

It's not sufficient to check /bin. Not knowing what unix flavor you are using I'll say you should at least also check: /usr/local/bin /sbin /usr/local/sbin and possibly another dozen or so to be sure :) The fact that you didn't know this means that you probably have a bit of a road ahead of you - a fun and interesting road if you are the type of person to enjoy it (I was).

Most modern unix distributions including a packaging system of some kind and, ideally, when installing new software into the system you should use the package manager to add the package. Sadly this can be a bit of a challenge since not all software is available packaged in a way you can use. I suggest you find a community support site for the relevant unix distro and see what package format your system likes, then see if you can find the tool you are trying to build (mcrypt for php?) in a compatible package format. If you can't find it packaged for your distro then you should try using a generic installation package for it (name-version.tgz typically) and read both the README and INSTALLATION files that are probably in the root directory of the package once you un-zip or un-tar it.

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How can I determine the unix flavor I am using? – Presto Aug 31 '11 at 21:56
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up vote 0 down vote

Looks like you're running RedHat. Type:

cat /etc/redhat-release

to get your version.

If it's 4x as indicated above, as someone mentioned, it looks like aclocal is in automake, try

up2date automake

If you're registered with a satellite server it should pull the package and all it's dependencies.

If it's 5 or higher. Type:

yum install automake

And it should get you what you need.

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