~/.profile vs ~/.pam_environment

[Jonathan Marsden]

On Fri, Jun 14, 2013, at 12:02 PM, Lars Nooden wrote:

> On Fri, 14 Jun 2013, Jonathan Marsden wrote:

>> no "instead of" relationship between them.  I don't understand why
>> you think there is.  /etc/environment (and ~/.pam_environment) will
>> be used (via PAM) whether or not .profile exists for the user
>> concerned.  One is executed by PAM, one is executed by a login shell.

> It seems to be explained as an instead of situation in the wiki:
>
>  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EnvironmentVariables#Session-wide_environment_variables

Well, I think that page describes many places where you can set
environment variables, and recommends which one to use for different
situations. But nowhere does it say "if *this* file exists, *that* other
file won't be used", which is what you were saying was happening (I
think).  The wiki page says (to me) that all of those files will be
used, if they exist, in different ways and at slightly different times.

How would you re-word the wiki text to make it clearer that these files
do not interfere with or suppress each other?

Jonathan
-- 
  Jonathan Marsden
  jmarsden at fastmail.fm