[olpc-community-support] Three Questions: Password for Wireless, Sound, and Browser

[William Bagwell]

On Friday 21 December 2007, jbglapaz wrote:
>  I entered su cat/boot/olpc_build
> also cat/boot/olpc_build
> also with quotes around both of the above.

Try 	cat /boot/olpc_build

Note the space between cat and the first forward slash. Cat and su are 
commands, /boot/olpc_build is the argument. Or what the command is going to 
act on. In this case /boot/ is a directory in the file structure and 
olpc_build is (probably I have not looked) a tiny text file which the command 
cat is displaying.

Cats primary function is to concatenate, or join, two files and display the 
results. In this case since only one file is specified no con'cat'enation is 
occurring, just the displaying part.

Su is a command to switch user. Since cat/boot/olpc_build is not a user on the 
system, that command is naturally not going to work. Su <space> - or "su -" 
(without the quotes) is a shorthand way to switch user to root. Please be 
*very* careful playing with any command as root. Great harm can be done! Most 
commands as a normal user are safe, as a normal user can only destroy what 
they own. 

And yes, commands are never surrounded by quotes. You might on rare occasions 
encounter one that has a quote chairactor inside for some reason, but quote 
markers on the outside are just to show where the command (and any arguments) 
start and stop.
-- 
William