Re: setting up environment variables

[Adam Hardy <adam.ant@cyberspaceroad.com>]

Daniel B. on 15/09/05 17:55, wrote:
> > On 9/14/05, *Kai Grossjohann* <kai@emptydomain.de 
> > <mailto:kai@emptydomain.de>> wrote:
> >
> >     Adam Hardy <adam.ant@cyberspaceroad.com
> >     <mailto:adam.ant@cyberspaceroad.com>> writes:
> >
> >      > If you want to change the envvars globally, then change them in
> >      > /etc/profile since all users' profile include that.
> >
> >     Is /etc/profile read when a user logs in via xdm, kdm, gdm or a
> >     similar program?
> >
> >     I tried to get my ~/.profile (or ~/.bash_profile or ~/.zprofile) read
> >     when logging in via [gkx]dm, but gave up long ago.  Now I use 
> > startx... 
>
>
> Shouldn't global environment variables be set in /etc/environment?
>
> If you set them in /etc/profile, they won't be set for all shells,
> will they?

Is this a run-level distinction then? Is /etc/profile is only involved 
in setting up run-level 2?

I was unaware of the /etc/environment directory. Is this a Debian thing? 
A linux thing? An X thing?