--- In ib-support@y..., "Nico Callewaert" <ncw@t...> wrote:

> Ian,
>
> But when I logged in as root, I went to the correct directory where
> isql was, with the ls command, I saw the file, but when I tried to
> run it, I got the message "command not found", and I saw it in my
> screen the file was there.
>

When logged in as a regular user (some of) my path is "/usr/bin:."
(use echo $PATH to show path variable). This means when i try to
execute a command linux will look in "/usr/bin" first, then "." where
"." is the current directory (as with dos) - thus to run isql from
/opt/interbase/bin i can try any of ./isql /opt/interbase/bin/isql or
just isql on its own.
The root user has a path of "/usr/bin" - with no "." so the last
method is not an option but "./isql" is simple enough.

Root doesnt include "." for security reasons - eg just in case a
hacker creates a script called "who" and places it in /tmp where root
may run it and give complete control of everything to Mr Hacker! This
is especially true if the current directory is the first in your path
so if you must include it always include it as the last element of the
path.

> The font was black, when not logged in as root, the font was red.
> How come ?
>

This comes from the command "ls" and the colours are user definable.
root (by default) doesnt bother setting up ls to give fancy colours!
To see if isql is executable then use "ls -l isql" where (-l == long)
and this should give you something like:
"-rwxr-x--- owner group date size isql" where x=execute, r=read and
w=write, the first set of 3 (rwx above) are for the user, the second
(r-x) for the group and the last 3 (---) for world. This can all be
altered using chmod (the first - is for directories!)

I recommend you get a good book and read it in the bath and all will
become clearer (well, less un-clear!). The documentation (books and
online - try /usr/docs/) are very complete...and subscribing to some
linux/suse groups would probably be very beneficial

continuing to HTH,
Ian