Installed a fun program but can't run it without typing the full path

Question

I installed cowsay, to try fun ways to learn linux commands. Using:

sudo apt install cowsay

And when I tried using it, like this: cowsay helloworld It did not work, I got bash: cowsay: command not found

I couldn't understand why. After trying to look it up, I realized that I could make it work by typing the full path:

/usr/games/cowsay helloworld and it worked. (edited to correct user to usr)

Is there a way to make it work from anywhere by just typing cowsay helloworld, without the full path?

Which distribution is it? It works on Debian... Also, it would help to know how _it did not work_. You probably had some error message. — Eduardo Trápani, May 01 '20 at 18:46
Are you sure you used `/user/games/cowsay` and not `/usr/games/cowsay`? — Arkadiusz Drabczyk, May 01 '20 at 18:59
You can prepend the program to the paths searched with `echo '$PATH=/usr/bin/cowysay:$PATH' >> ~/.bashrc`. Make sure that your shell is bash first evaluating `echo $SHELL`. — Max1, May 01 '20 at 19:30
How about using `hash -r`, assuming you're in Bash? Perhaps you attempted to run cowsay before?! ... also, `/usr/games` simply may not be in your `PATH` as was pointed out. — 0xC0000022L, May 01 '20 at 21:18

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited May 04 '20 at 02:30

4

You need to add /usr/games to your $PATH variable.

To do so (on a permanent basis):

Edit your .bashrc file, for example, by typing vim ~/.bashrc.
Add the following line to the .bashrc file and save it
```
PATH=$PATH:/usr/games
```
Type source ~/.bashrc to make it take effect.

edited May 04 '20 at 02:30

answered May 01 '20 at 20:11

Rasulli

1 Answers1