Hello all! (the Gray Screen of Death)

[Matt Alexander]

On Fri, 18 Oct 2002, Michael Havens wrote:

> I tried what you told me to do and this was the result:
>
> [bmike1@localhost bmike1]$ less/var/log/xfree86.0.log
> bash: less/var/log/xfree86.0.log: No such file or directory
> [bmike1@localhost bmike1]$ less /var/log/xfree86.0.log
> /var/log/xfree86.0.log: No such file or directory
> [bmike1@localhost bmike1]$ less / var/log/xfree86.0.log
> / is a directory
> var/log/xfree86.0.log: No such file or directory
> [bmike1@localhost bmike1]$ less/ var/log/xfree86.0.log
> bash: less/: No such file or directory
> [bmike1@localhost bmike1]$
> [bmike1@localhost bmike1]$
>
> Now what am I doing wrong?


"less" is a command and you give it a file name as input.  The first "/"
means you're starting at the root directory and working your way through
the various subdirectories to the actual file you want "less" to open.
All those slashes and subdirectories need to be together in the command.
For example,

less /var/log/XFree86.0.log

UNIX systems are case-sensitive on the command line, so xfree86.0.log is
different than XFree86.0.log.  Since you're new to Linux, I would
recommend you pick up a gentle introductory book that will teach you the
basics.  Anything like the "for dummies" or "24 hour" books should
suffice.  These books usually present the material in a logical manner,
so, for example, you would learn how to enter commands on the command-line
before you learned how to configure Apache.
~M