Re: daft question

[Stephen J. Turnbull <nospam [at] sk.tsukuba.ac.jp>]

>>>>> Ian == Ian Wright <Ian [at] iw63.freeserve.co.uk> writes:

Ian> Oh shit, I knew I shouldn't have asked. Now I'm even more
Ian> confused than I was at the beginning - perhaps I'd better go
Ian> back to dos, at least I understand the autoexec.bat file ;o)
Ian> .

Don't do that; I was just pulling Al's chain. Here's some real info:

(1) Do `echo $PATH' first. There's a good chance that the program
installs itself somewhere on the standard path, and you already have
the necessary value of PATH.

(2) Look at the files

/etc/profile # official Bash file
/etc/bashrc # unofficial, but some distributions used it
~/.bash_profile # ~ is your home directory
~/.bash_login
~/.profile # only one of these three should exist
~/.bashrc

All Linux distributions automatically provide /etc/profile, ~/.bashrc,
and at least one of the user profile scripts, usually ~/.bash_profile.

Look for mention of the others, especially in the form `source that'
or `. that'. They often depend on each other. This can cause
complications. (Here not too dire, you'll just end up with
duplications in your PATH.)

(3) Then add a PATH statement of the following form at the end of
/etc/profile (if the new search path applies to all users, including
root---this is usually considered a bad idea for security reasons;
root should not automatically execute most programs, you should have
to think about it first) OR to ~/.bash_profile (or ~/.bash_login or
~/.profile if you don't have the first already)

PATH=$PATH:/one/new/path:/another/new/path

This appends the new paths to the old PATH. It's probably a bad idea
to replace the old PATH. Note that you do not use a `$' on the left
hand side, but you must use it on the right hand side. Also, unlike
DOS the path separator is a colon.

(4) Then start a new shell (either fire up a new *term or do `bash
--login' in an old one), and do `echo $PATH' to see the result. If
your new path doesn't appear something's weird.

At that point you could send us the contents of your various profiles
so we can see what exactly is happening.

Ian> written by people who are so steeped in their subject

Naw, we're just too busy harassing each other to be helpful.

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