/etc/profile.d

[Piotr Roszatycki <dexter@fnet.pl>]

I noticed an /etc/profile.d directory in RH distribution.

I think it is good idea. Some packages require to set correct environment
variables, etc.

i.e qt1 requires QTDIR=/usr/lib/qt1g variable. It could be set by
/etc/profile.d/qt1g.sh conffile.

Another example - a choise of default language in /etc/profile.d/lang.sh file.

It is very simple to implement this feature in /etc/profile:

for i in /etc/profile.d/*.sh; do
    . $i
done  

Of course, Debian Policy tells 

"No program may depend on environment variables to get reasonable
defaults. (That's because these environment variables would have to be
set in a system-wide configuration file like /etc/profile, which is
not supported by all shells.)"

but I think this directory could be useful in some cases.

-- 

Piotr "Dexter" Roszatycki
mailto:dexter@fnet.pl