Arch Linux

Llama

Member

From: St.-Petersburg, Russia

Registered: 2008-03-03

Posts: 1,199

/etc/profile* files: what are they about?

Hi, everybody,

Solving a minor trouble (man pages not showing) I learned that the problem has something to do with /etc/profile* files. There is an advice on this forum to replace /etc/profile with /etc/profile.pacnew; I tried it, and it worked, but I feel very uncomfortable because I don't understand. I'd be very grateful for an introductory explanation and/or an appropriate link.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: /etc/profile* files: what are they about?

open it and look.

mechSoul

Member

From: Slovakia

Registered: 2008-04-04

Posts: 6

Re: /etc/profile* files: what are they about?

If you open profile file you can si bunch of export commands and settig variables. These are usefull if you want to export or unset some variable for whole your enviroment, not just for one terminal like you can do it in .bashrc. For example, you solved man page problem by substitution of /etc/profile. /etc/profile.pacnew unset variable MANPATH which was declared in old /etc/profile.

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: /etc/profile* files: what are they about?

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacnew