Re: newbie: startup files under bash...

[Olivier Esser <ol.esser@belgacom.net>]

alan brown wrote:
> My reading has told me that when I start up a new bash shell 
> /etc/profile and /etc/bash.bashrc are run.  And then ~/.profile and 
> ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile are run
>
>  
>
> So I?m trying to set the PATH environment variable to include my java 
> bin directory.  So I created a .profile file in my home directory (one 
> didn?t exist before) and simply put in the line?
>
>  
>
> export PATH=$PATH:/home/myhome/javahome/bin
>
>  
>
> However, when I started up a new shell and ran ?echo $PATH? it didn?t 
> take effect.
>
>  
>
> Not only that, but the path that was returned to me did not appear in 
> any of the above files. 
>
>  
>
> Is there some other file that I?m missing that has been read and defined 
> the PATH variable?
>
> What is the right file to set my PATH variable?
>
>  
>
> Thanks in advance.

The system load .bashrc or .bash_profile according wether you log in a 
 console or not. Make all your changes in .bashrc and tell 
.bash_profile to load .bashrc (just uncomment the appropriate line in 
.bash_profile). Don't forget to open a new xterm or to log out and to 
log in again in order to tell bash to reread the file.