Last Gasp (cont)

[Olaf Olson]

Actually, the answer to that is that the ./ is required IF you don't 
have . (that is, your current directory) in your PATH. This is true of 
most *NIX, and is done as a security setting, for root. root won't run 
an application in the current directory without it. I believe the 
history of this is that it was devised in the early 90s, when people 
were stealing time on mainframes, by mailing scripts that created back 
doors. By eliminating the current directory (or, actually, the present 
working directory, pwd), this blocked the hacker access.

One of two things occurred after you reinstalled. Either you are now 
running as other than root, or you changed the security setting defaults 
to something lower than your original install.

Olaf

andrew wrote:

>>I hope this was helpful.  Note that the syntax to actually execute any
>>Linux command from within the appropriate directory is a period followed
>>by a forward slash, ie. ./
>>    
>>
>
>Now Im puzzled to say the least.... I HAD to put ./ before mostly any
>commands. I found it annoying and re-installed everything from zero. No
>more need to ./ anymore.. How bizarre. Is Linux some kind of alternative
>OS??? (alternative as in sometimes it work, sometimes it does not)??
>
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