Wishlist: don't print anything if not connected to a terminal

[era]

Binary package hint: command-not-found

On a Gutsy box, I was dropped into a root shell when fsck failed.

In that particular situation, you probably don't want to be distracted by impertinent error messages.

I see that bug #129257 fixes the problem that the command-not-found output was being printed to standard output. However, I would additionally like to suggest that it simply stay quiet if not connected to a terminal. If the command which could not be found is being invoked from a script, the suggestion to install the missing package is rarely what is needed or expected, and even less so if the problem is with the PATH.

For the record, the single-user root shell runs with a PATH which does not include /usr/bin, and yet there are commands from /usr/bin such as lesspipe being invoked from root's standard .bashrc. Perhaps these should be conditional etc; if requested, I will file a separate bug about that.

vnix$ PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/games

vnix$ lesspipe
Command 'lesspipe' is available in '/usr/bin/lesspipe'
The command could not be located because '/usr/bin' is not included in the PATH environment variable.
bash: lesspipe: command not found

vnix$ eval "$(lesspipe)"
bash: lesspipe: command not found
bash: Command: command not found
bash: The: command not found

vnix$ fgrep lesspipe /root/.bashrc
# make less more friendly for non-text input files, see lesspipe(1)
[ -x /usr/bin/lesspipe ] && eval "$(lesspipe)"

[era (era)]

For the record, see also my recent follow-up to bug #129257

[era (era)]

I have reported a separate bug about commands in /root/.bashrc which require /usr -- bug #212413

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

With the fix for #127399 it should no longer run command-not-found when in a subshell or if it does not have a terminal. As for the single user shell, here is what it outputs in karmic:

$ PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/games firefox
Command 'firefox' is available in '/usr/bin/firefox'
The command could not be located because '/usr/bin' is not included in the PATH environment variable.
bash: firefox: command not found

I think this is helpful advise, please reopen (or report a new bug) if you think otherwise.

Thanks,
 Michael