idle3ctl command not found

Introduction

When you run more command in linux terminal / console, you get the following error message

idle3ctl: command not found

or when using sudo you get the following error message

sudo: idle3ctl: command not found

Solutions to idle3ctl: command not found

How To Fix idle3ctl: command not found in Ubuntu / Debian / Kali Linux / Raspbian

In Ubuntu idle3ctl is provided by idle3-tools package.

idle3-tools is:

Idle3-tools provides a linux/unix utility that can disable, get and set the value of the infamous idle3 timer found on recent Western Digital Hard Disk Drives.

It can be used as an alternative to the official wdidle3.exe proprietary utility, without the need to reboot in a DOS environment.

A power off/on cycle of the drive will still be mandatory for new settings to be taken into account.

Modern Western Digital “Green” Drives include the Intellipark feature that stops the disk when not in use.

Unfortunately, the default timer setting is not perfect on linux/unix systems, including many NAS, and leads to a dramatic increase of the Load Cycle Count value (SMART attribute #193). With the default timer setting, the drive will spin down every eight seconds if idle and this may get the spindle motor to burn out in a few months or so.

If you have a Western Digital EADS or EARS drive, please check you SMART information before it’s too late by running the following command:

sudo smartctl -A /dev/sda | grep “^193”

If the Load cycle count (which is in the last column) exceeds 1000, you’re probably affected by the idle3 timer problem.

To fix this problem, we can install more using the command below.

sudo apt-get -y install idle3-tools

This command might take some time to finish depending on your machine internet connection.

You can also use apt command to install idle3-tools.

sudo apt -y install idle3-tools

Or if you have aptitude installed you can use the following command.

sudo aptitude install idle3-tools

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to fix idle3ctl command not found error in Ubuntu / Debian / Kali Linux or Raspbian distribution.