Re: Help w/ Qpopper 4.0.3


Subject: Re: Help w/ Qpopper 4.0.3
From: Jim Cole (greyleaf@yggdrasill.net)
Date: Sat Aug 11 2001 - 00:51:06 MDT


Brian Watson's bits of Fri, 10 Aug 2001 translated to:

>How do I add something to my (root's) path? What is he path's
>purpose? I am fairly new to Linux, so I want to learn. Thanks.

The path defines the directories in which the system should look for an
executable if a path is not explicitly provided. By explicitly provided, I
mean something like

$ /usr/bin/gcc (execute the gcc in /usr/bin)
$ ./gcc (execute the gcc in the current directory)

If instead you simply type

$ gcc

the system examines the PATH environment variable, extracts all directory
names listed in that variable, and searches them one by one, in the order
they occur, looking for gcc. The first gcc found is executed. If no gcc is
found in any of the directories, you will generally see something like

gcc: Command not found.

As for setting the path, it is dependent upon the shell you are using. For
an 'sh' type shell (typical for root), you can do something like

$ PATH=/usr/local/bin:${PATH}
$ export PATH

which prefixes /usr/local/bin to the existing path.

For a 'csh' type shell, you can do something like

$ setenv PATH ${PATH}:/usr/local/bin

which appends /usr/local/bin to the existing path.

You can use

$ printenv PATH

to view the current PATH variable.

>Someone mentioned earlier adding things to etc/profile, but that
>seems like a global change, not for individual users?

You need to add commands like those above to the user's shell startup
file. In all cases this file should reside in the user's home directory,
however the name depends on the shell used (e.g. .bash_profile for bash,
.tcshrc for tcsh). Btw, files with a '.' prefix will typically be hidden;
use the -a option to ls to view such file names.

Jim



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