02-23-2012
It's not one giant thing. Anything can and does set it, and passes on copies of these changes to whatever it creates in turn. To get a complete understanding of how this PATH is set you'd need to know everything that changed it from the point your system runs init until the point your window manager creates your shell -- anything along the way between those two can affect PATH.
Only after all that happens, does your shell exist to start changing it too...
1) Your window manager creates a shell prompt. What PATH does your window manager have? Who knows. Whatever it had for whatever reason, your shell gets a copy.
2) shell reads /etc/profile. This is a script -- they can do anything they want in there, like read other files, set a special path for root only, or anything else you can imagine.
3) shell reads ~/.bashrc. This is also a script.
Last edited by Corona688; 02-23-2012 at 05:44 PM..
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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN
surfraw-update-path
SURFRAW-UPDATE-PATH(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation SURFRAW-UPDATE-PATH(1)
NAME
surfraw-update-path - updates PATH in shell config files
SYNOPSIS
surfraw-update-path [-add] [-remove] [-check] [-sys] [-all] [-help] [-shell=SHELL]
DESCRIPTION
surfraw-update-path adds the surfraw elvi directory (/usr/lib/surfraw) to your PATH in your shell's config file.
Currently it supports bash, sh, csh, tcsh, ash, dash, ksh, pdksh, zsh, rc, and es
Don't forget to login again or source your login files for it to take effect.
OPTIONS
-check
Checks to see if the surfraw config code is present. This is the default.
-add
Adds the surfraw config code.
-remove
Removes the surfraw config code
-sys
Updates the system-wide shell config instead of the user. Must be done as root.
-shell=SHELL
Selects the shell to configure. Defaults to the value of the $SHELL environment variable.
Currently supported shells are:
sh, ash, bash, dash, csh, tcsh, ksh, pdksh, zsh, rc, and es.
-all
Attempts to configure the startup files for all known shells
-help
Gives a usage message
RETURN VALUE
-check returns 0 if the surfraw code is present in the file, 1 if it is not found, or 2 on error.
All other options return 0 on success, or 2 on error.
ENVIRONMENT
SHELL
Used to determine which shell to configure, if -shell is not given.
HOME
Used to find users config files.
ENV Used by posix-compliant shells to specify a startup rc file.
ZDOTDIR
Used to find user config files for zsh. If not set, defaults to HOME.
SEE ALSO
surfraw(1), sh(1), ash(1), bash(1), dash(1), csh(1), tcsh(1), ksh(1), pdksh(1), zsh(1), rc(1), es(1)
AUTHOR
Ian Beckwith <ianb@erislabs.net>
perl v5.12.4 2011-07-12 SURFRAW-UPDATE-PATH(1)