Terminal: command not found

Several things. The most common problem is a broken PATH environment variable.

If you have one of these files, chances are it has a broken PATH assignement

.bash_profile

.bash_login

.profile

.bashrc

By default none of these file exist on your system, but are frequently created by heavy duty terminal users, or by terminal based program install scripts, or by web instructions to a user.

If you have one of the above files, you should examine it to see if it has a PATH assignment. If it does, you should either fix it, or you should rename the file so it is no longer looked at, and restart your terminal session.

Another cause might be scripts that have (CR)(LF) line terminators (ala Windows/DOS text files), or (CR) line terminators (ala old Mac OS Classic text files). Or worse, a word processor based file, being run as a script (I shutter to think about that 🙂). Unix based shell scripts must be (LF) terminated.

With bad line terminators in mind, it is critical that if you are doing the editing of a .bash_profile, or .bash_login, or .profile, or .bashrc file that you DO NOT use the wrong kind of editor. If you are using nano, pico, vi, vim, emacs, etc... they should all create the correct kind of file, where nano would be the simplest, and vi, vim, emacs the most difficult to use, unless you are an experienced user of those programming editors.

If you are using Applications -> TextEdit, make sure you have TextEdit -> Format -> Make Plain Text has been selected. Rich Text will not work as a shell initialization file.

Or download BBEdit (the demo ONLY which is FREE!), and use that. BBEdit will still be very functional AFTER the Demo period expires as a text editor. <https://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit>. You do not need to buy it to use it.

Open a Terminal window. Assume for simplicity that your bash prompt is '$'. Type the command in blue text which will list the hidden Bash dot files. Follow Bob's advice and get BBEdit, and then use it to open the .bash_profile:

$ ls -a | grep "bash|profile"

# comment: as an example, open the hidden .bash_profile

$ open -a BBEdit ~/.bash_profile

What is more complicated is that the installation of the Ruby Version Manager (rvm) attempts to edit the PATH statement in every $HOME/.bashrc, $HOME/.bash_profile, $HOME/.profile, and $HOME/.zshrc file that it finds. It makes two changes, once before any ruby is installed, and then after a ruby version has been installed.

It wants the path to the installed Ruby gems to be the first item in your PATH. For Ruby v2.3.6, mine is:

export PATH="$HOME/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.6/bin:.:$HOME/bin:$PATH

and near the end of the .bash_profile, will be the following:

export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/.rvm/bin"

You won't be able to install any Ruby version until you have either an Xcode, or Command Line Tools for Xcode installed so that rvm can actually compile the downloaded Ruby source code. You cannot meet the RVM prerequisites until you have the homebrew package manager correctly installed.

You must be certain that you tell RVM to use the system Ruby, or its current installed Ruby via:

rvm use system

rvm use 2.3.6

You need Apple compilation tools to compile the Ruby gems, and sudo privileges to update the System gem repository.

I have purposely left my System Ruby and its gems untouched, as some Apple applications or Library frameworks expect these to not be changed. Installing the compass/sass gem will introduce many other dependency installations, that may require specific Ruby version. Doing so, may have adverse effects on the System Ruby and its gem integrity.

This is specifically why I use a separate Ruby version and gem solution — to preserve the System Ruby.

Your PATH statement as you have shown, includes most items that are already included in the default PATH. It can be restated:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/X11/bin

As VikingOSX is more knowledgable about Ruby and things, I'll just through this out. Think of it as a tangent.

Shell initialization files are found in your home directory, so I should have said

$HOME/.bash_profile

$HOME/.bash_login

$HOME/.profile

$HOME/.bashrc

Which makes it much easier to find them, vs using the 'find' command starting at the / (root) directory 🙂

And again, by default none of those files exist unless explicitly created by the user or an install script, so if someone else reading this thread cannot find any of them, it is OK.