Re: PATH changing in RH7.1

["Mikkel L. Ellertson" <mikkel Infinity-ltd com>]

On Sat, 1 Sep 2001, John P. Verel wrote:

> Sigh.  I cannot believe I've forgotten how to do this :(
>
> I need to append /usr/java/jdk-1.3.1/bin to my path.  I want it to be a
> global setting.
>
> My /etc/rc.d/re.local looks, in part, like this:
>
> PATH=/usr/java/jdk1.3.1/bin:$PATH
> export PATH
>
> (According to the Red Hat Reference Guide, rc.local should be the last
> thing run at boot time.  Do I misunderstand this?)
>
> Yet, echo $PATH shows:
>
> /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/john/bin
>
> I've tried this in /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit, with the same results.
>
> I run ximian Gnome, Red Hat 7.1.  It is possible that path gets
> clobbered by gnome?
>
> TIA
>
>
I think you are misunderstandign what rc.local is for.  Things done in
rc.local normaly do not affect a user's envirment.  (Path, aliases,
etc.)  It can be used for things like setting serial ports, and other
hardware configuration that is not done other places.  It can also be
used for things like starting a firewal (though there are better ways to
do this...), or launching a daemon that doesn't have a script in init.d.

For example, it have a radio card in my desktop machine.  I configure
the tunner on it, as well as set the mixer setting in rc.local.  (I use
cam instead of aumix...)  This works well because the programs run once,
set the hardware, and do not need to be run again.

For user settings, as has been pointed out, files in /etc/profile.d are
a better place...

Mikkel
 --

    Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
 for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.