Re: Which package creates /etc/environment?

[Phil Edwards <phil@jaj.com>]

On Fri, Mar 19, 2004 at 10:44:05PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote:
> Phil Edwards <phil@jaj.com> writes:
> 
> > Because 'dpkg -S' can't find it.
> 
> Right, nothing in Debian provides it.

This turns out not to be the case.  After some more grepping, I found
that locales.postinst can create it.  Probably other things can too (this
bonobo lib thingy, for example).  I'm thinking now that this is supposed
to be one of those common files that everything can use, but nothing is
responsible for.  All well and good, but it should be documented somewhere.
(The traditional Unix solaution would be a single paragraph, made available
by "man 5 environment", but whatever.)


> > And more to the point, what's looking at that file?  It isn't my login shell,
> > it isn't any of the setup files that it looks at (.bashrc and so
> > forth).
> 
> Actually, it is.  You can set site-wide variables there.

Um.  Let me elaborate.   When I said that it isn't the login shell, I
meant that strace'ing a shell session showed no sign of reading that file.
When I said that it isn't any of the setup files, I meant that a depth-first
inspection by hand never found any ". /etc/environment" lines.

So, yeah, /something/'s looking at it, and if I can reassure myself with
proof that I know what that something is -- i.e., and know not to remove
it from the system -- then I might start putting variables in there myself.

Did it show up recently?  I never saw it in a woody installation.  How long
have you been using it?

-- 
Behind everything some further thing is found, forever; thus the tree behind
the bird, stone beneath soil, the sun behind Urth.  Behind our efforts, let
there be found our efforts.
              - Ascian saying, as related by Loyal to the Group of Seventeen