Environment variables

[Robert Holtzman]

On Tue, 27 May 2008, Nils Kassube wrote:

> Robert Holtzman wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 May 2008, Nils Kassube wrote:
>>> Thanks for the hint. I didn't remember ~/.profile when I needed a
>>> modified /etc/environment for one user only. Therefore I tried
>>> ~/.environment and it worked (at least with KDE). Actually here both
>>> ~/.profile and ~/.environment work.
>>
>> Out of curiosity, did you upgrade from 7.10 to 8.04 or did you make a
>> clean install of 8.04? I'm wondering if a clean install creates a
>> ~/.environment file whereas an upgrade doesn't.
>
> I made an upgrade, but the file wasn't there anyway. As Thilo wrote
> already, it doesn't exist by default. Maybe I should have written it more
> precisely. I created the file ~/.environment by copying /etc/environment
> and then I modified it according to my needs. I just tried it because for
> many config files in /etc you can use the same file name
> replacing "/etc/" with "~/." and you get a separate config file for the
> particular user.

Looks like I screwed up. I first ran a search for .environment and, of 
course nothing showed up. When I just ran a search for environment (no dot)
it popped right up in /etc.

I also screwed up when I said my variables were in ~./.profile. Actually 
they are in ~./.bashrc which is called from .profile (I think).

I'm not sure I see the logic in having the PATH and LANG variables in 
/etc/environment and the HISTCONTROL, PS1, PROMPT_COMMAND, among others, 
in ~./.bashrc. Someone out there want to enlighten me.

-- 
Bob Holtzman
The most dangerous ones aren't the ones who don't know.
They're the ones who don't know that they don't know.