[COLUG] Best place for modifying path

[Rob Funk]

Tom Hanlon wrote:
> What is the place and where are the overview docs on that ?

For docs, the standard answers are "man bash" and "pinfo bash".
(pinfo is a friendly info browser, but there are others, including info, 
emacs, and konqueror.)

> /etc/profile seems like the most likely candidate .
>
> Will /etc/profile be read when a new console is initiated in an
> already open xwindow ?

The bash man page on my Ubuntu machine says:
| When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a  non-inter-
| active  shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes com-
| mands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists....
| When  an  interactive  shell that is not a login shell is started, bash
| reads and executes commands from  /etc/bash.bashrc  and  ~/.bashrc,  if
| these  files  exist.

So /etc/bash.bashrc is better than /etc/profile, since /etc/profile only 
gets invoked on login shells.

Of course, this assumes everyone uses bash as their shell.  If not, it's 
probably best to move back a level to the login sequence, and set it 
there.  Trouble there is that there are multiple ways of logging in and 
getting a shell (login program, various X display managers, remote shell 
such as ssh, other PAM-using system).  /etc/login.defs 
and /etc/security/pam_env.conf are two places to look.

-- 
==============================|   "A microscope locked in on one point
 Rob Funk <rfunk at funknet.net> |Never sees what kind of room that it's in"
 http://www.funknet.net/rfunk |    -- Chris Mars, "Stuck in Rewind"