user without root privilege

[the grv <mygrv@yahoo.co.uk>]

Hi list. Sorry for my bad english.
Into my powerbook 1,67, i have debian lenny testing with 2 user: normal user and root. I not istall GDM and i can open X with the command "startx". my problem is that the normal user not have a simple command as "ifconfig". Bash reply me that the command not exist!

When i login with root, the command exist instead!
I'll like to connect to internet by bash and use irssi or lynx (with my user)!

I must to modify the sudoers file, but where is it? And what i do? 

Please help me. 
thank you.

GRV