Cannot run linux commands since Snow Leopard upgrade

Question

Hi,
I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard (10.6) from Leopard . . . The issue is that I can no longer run some of linux commands in the same directories where I have run them before. Two cases, chmod and rm
chmod a+x or chmod 777, I get prompts that indicate that I am not running the command properly? What's that all about?
The other example is a recursive remove that I use all the time to get rid of backup files . . .
rm -rf .bak or rm-rf ./bak Neither works anymore and I'm starting to doubt myself . . . when I actually found this issue I was not retyping, just reopening the command shell, and using the arrow to get back to the command(s).
Help! I am a professional developer, but this is really slowing me down. I can't even sudo anymore.
Also, what is wheel? When I ls-al, I see the owner is user, but the next column appears to be a group, wheel.

Answer 1

I suspect, from the examples cited, you just ran them incorrectly. For instance, you have given here
rm-rf ./bak
which won't work as there is no space between the command "rm" and the options "-rf" (which are for "recursive" and "force"), so the shell sees the command as being "rm-rf" and there ain't no sech thing. The other remove command is for a file named ".bak" and again I suspect you have no such file, so the command won't work. If you want to remove a particular file the easy way is to just type rm, a space, and then drag the file into the Terminal. You should not need the option to force for a file created by yourself, nor do you need recursive for a single file.
The chmod commands need something to work on, for instance
chmod 777 /Users/francine/Desktop/misc/driveicons
changes the permissions of the folder "driveicons" from drwxr-xr-x to drwxrwxrwx and works just fine. If you have used a command incorrectly, using the arrow keys to move back thru the history won't help, you'll just get your incorrectly used command repeated.
I think you just don't really understand what it is you have done and are doing. My guess is that you copied some commands you found or someone gave you, without knowing much about what the Terminal is, what a shell is, how the shell works, and so on. That is all more than a little risky, especially if you are using chmod and remove commands.
And yes, there is a group wheel. However, generally the wheel group has root (system) as the user.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder