[TriLUG] Messed Up Bash.Bashrc

[Cristóbal Palmer]

On Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 1:44 PM, Grawburg wrote:
> Thinkpad T40, Debian 6.0.6
>  
> As root, in a shell, I can do nothing with the file. Permission is not granted.
What command(s) are you using to try to edit? What is the exact error? What is the output of "ls -l FILENAME" for that FILENAME?

You probably need to either chmod or chown (or both) the file.
> Is there no way to use gedit from GNOME was the root user (the owner of the file)?

Use a terminal from a LiveCD or similar. Your existing install probably won't be mounted by default. Did your existing install use LVM? If so, you may need to install some tools in the live environment. Regardless, you'll want to get the existing install's filesystem(s) mounted. From there you should be able to "sudo nano FILENAME" and edit easily. Nano is a rather simple editor that shouldn't leave you stuck.
>  
> I tried to boot with a LiveDVD of Mint Linux and Scientific Linux but once it goes through the countdown it just sits there.

What countdown? The grub prompt? Which versions of those LiveCDs?
> It seems like the only choice I'm going to have it start all over again and reinstall Debian 6.

Reinstall if you're impatient, but that's definitely not your only choice. If you want help in real time there's a #trilug IRC channel on freenode.
  
Cheers,
--  
Cristóbal Palmer
cmpalmer.org