Re: PATH question
On Tuesday 04 August 2020 14:57:49 Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 04, 2020 at 02:49:00PM -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > > If so, are you logging in via sddm,
> > > which is what KDE on Debian normally uses?
> >
> > probably not, but I'm talking about my own shell, which is probably
> > started by the tde version of lightdm.
>
> So you've configured lightdm to perform an autologin? Yikes.
>
> Well, it probably goes through the Debian X11 session which means
> you configure environment stuff in ~/.xsessionrc.
>
> > > the ~/.bashrc file, which will pick up the PATH change. When all
> > > of the windows have been re-shelled, you can edit ~/.bashrc again
> > > to remove the PATH=... command, since you don't want it to stay
> > > there.
> >
> > But I do want it to remain, just like the $HOME/bin that prefaces to
> > $PATH I can see with an echo $PATH right now.
>
> But you said .profile in the first email. I said .bashrc. Now you're
> saying that you're actually using .bashrc and not .profile?!
>
I did, because that is where I found the existing $PATH defined. There is
no mention of PATH in my .bashrc.
> The problem with putting PATH=... in .bashrc is that it gets read by
> each shell that starts up. If you ever have a nested set of shells
> (e.g. you start a terminal with a shell in it, which is shell level
> one, and then you run an editor, and then from the editor you perform
> a shell escape, which is now shell level two...) then you end up with
> duplicate entries in PATH.
Yes, pita to clear them out too.
> In the most degenerate cases you can end up with
> PATH=/foo:/foo:/foo:....
>
> That's why you usually try to put some effort into finding the *one*
> place that you can add a directory to your PATH *one* time, without
> breaking anything.
Precisely.
>
> But if you prefer to be lazy, then sure, go ahead and use .bashrc and
> end up with repeated eternally long PATH entries.
And thats a bad dog, no biscuit.
Thanks. I guess I'll reboot but that rather resembles using a
sledgehammer on a gnat. So since I don't seem to able to express what I
want with the whole world assuming I am logging in from a remote
terminal, I'll close the thread with a reboot as I can setup the rest of
my working env in 10 to 15 minutes, what I was trying to avoid.
Thank you
Cheers, Gene Heskett
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
- Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
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