At a loss for PATH......

[Vittorio De Martino <v.demartino2@virgilio.it>]

Context: Pentium 4, debian testing, boxed KDE

I have just installed the java stuff - downloaded from SUN site- as a plugin 
for mozilla. 
The installation instruction requires that the directory in which I 
installed the java libs and programs be part of the PATH variable.

My question is:
Where the PATH variable is first set at boot time: 
in /etc/profile, /etc/bashrc.bash or where?

Ciao
Vittorio