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Insperatus
Asked: 2012-12-12 22:01:47 +0800 CST

Why does my terminal attempt to execute 'sudo apt-get update' at every launch?

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Every time I launch a terminal it attempts to execute sudo apt-get update

This happens regardless of which terminal emulator is used - both guake and gnome-terminal do it at least.

It also does the behavior upon creating new tabs within either terminal application or when logging into different ttys. Any time a new bash is started it seems.

Additionally, the command inexplicably fails (command not found) - though it executes perfectly if I type it in manually.

How can I make this strange terminal quirk desist?

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12.10

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The error message

    sudo apt-get update: command not found

    means that something is trying to execute a command called "sudo apt-get update", not the command sudo with arguments apt-get and update.

    There must be such a command in one of the several scripts that are invoked when bash starts. It could be any of:

    • /etc/profile
    • ~/.bash_profile
    • ~/.bash_login
    • ~/.profile
    • ~/.bashrc

    or something invoked by any of them. Try grepping for apt-get in those files. If that fails, look at other scripts and commands they invoke.

    For example, I just reproduced the error message by (temporarily) adding this line:

    "sudo apt-get full-upgrade"

    (including the quotes) to my ~/.bashrc.

    You can also try running bash -lx from the prompt; -l makes it a login shell, and -x causes it to trace commands. To save the output in a file:

    bash -lx < /dev/null > bash-lx.log 2>&1
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  2. As everyone is saying, most likely is your .profile. But it also says that command is not found because the path to the binary is not specified (in case you want to actually run this command).

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