Brand new Debian install issues

[RogerV]

Hello,
I just put Debian 11 bullseye in a virtual box. And it appears I do not have any commands.

So first I want to add a user to the sudoers file with

usermod -aG sudo username

but then the usermod command doesn't exist
so then I want to get the debian repository,

deb  http://deb.debian.org/debian  stretch main

but deb command doesn't exist

 

[wizardfromoz]

G'day @RogerV and welcome to linux.org

I am no Debian expert, but I CAN tell you that "Stretch" has expired (30 June), you should be using bullseye with main.

A couple of our Debian experts are UK-based, I expect one or more of them will be along in a few hours.

Good luck.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

 

[osprey]

RogerV wrote:

I just put Debian 11 bullseye in a virtual box.
....
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch main

If you are installing bullseye, then it's bullseye, and not stretch than needs to be in your sources.list. You could replace all the mentions of stretch with bullseye, but stretch shouldn't be there if you've installed the current stable debian, which is bullseye.

On the usermod query, you could run:

whereis usermod

to check if it's there. It's a standard program so it's going to be there in a normal installation. It's part of the passwd package which is basic and essential, so if usermod isn't present, there's a serious problem with the installation. In that case, re-install may help.

If you "do not have any commands" as you wrote, you'll have to re-install. Ensure that your installation media or image for the vm is valid. Perhaps verify before use.

 

[Brickwizard]

Good morning and welcome to the forums
I am not a VM user, however the symptoms you express are those often found with a corrupt download or bad installation, as Bullseye is now unsupported, I also recommend you start again using Stretch or one of the other recent release distributions.

 

[osprey]

Brickwizard wrote:

as Bullseye is now unsupported, I also recommend you start again using Stretch or one of the other recent release distributions.

As I mentioned in post #3, bullseye is the current stable debian. stretch was debian 9, followed by buster which was debian 10, but today, it's still bullseye, debian 11, until the testing branch, bookworm, becomes the new stable branch at some time in the future.

 

[Brickwizard]

As I mentioned in post #3, bullseye is the current stable debian

you are right, I am having a roundabout moment and put it the wrong way round, whichever way the OP decides he need to use one of the latest distributions