Thanks everyone for helping with this old post. I actually found out that /etc/environment is actually preferred for setting system wide path. I attached a bit of reading to anyone interested. System-wide environment variables A suitable file for environment variable settings that affect the system as a whole (rather than just a particular user) is /etc/environment. An alternative is to create a file for the purpose in the /etc/profile.d directory. /etc/environment This file is specifically meant for system-wide environment variable settings. It is not a script file, but rather consists of assignment expressions, one per line. FOO=barNote: Variable expansion does not work in /etc/environment. /etc/profile.d/*.sh Files with the .sh extension in the /etc/profile.d directory get executed whenever a bash login shell is entered (e.g. when logging in from the console or over ssh), as well as by the DisplayManager when the desktop session loads. You can for instance create the file /etc/profile.d/myenvvars.sh and set variables like this: export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0 export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin Other files While /etc/profile is often suggested for setting environment variables system-wide, it is a configuration file of the base-files package, so it's not appropriate to edit that file directly. Use a file in /etc/profile.d instead as shown above. (Files in /etc/profile.d are sourced by /etc/profile.) /etc/default/locale is specifically meant for system-wide locale environment variable settings. It's written to by the installer and when you use Language Support to set the language or regional formats system-wide. On a desktop system there is normally no reason to edit this file manually. The shell config file /etc/bash.bashrc is sometimes suggested for setting environment variables system-wide. While this may work on Bash shells for programs started from the shell, variables set in that file are not available by default to programs started from the graphical environment in a desktop session. Thanks, paul > From: chewie at wookimus.net > To: tclug-list at mn-linux.org > Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 23:15:39 -0500 > Subject: Re: [tclug-list] Firefox 28 on Ubuntu 10.04 [Solved] > > Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote: > > I wonder why. Where does PATH get set? I don't see PATH in > > /etc/bash.bashrc or in /etc/profile, but it is coming from > > somewhere. Anyone know where? > > Default PATH's are generally set in your /etc/login.defs as ENV_PATH for > users and ENV_SUPATH for super-users. This will set the default paths > regardless of the shell you're using or how that shell was invoked. > > man -s5 login.defs > > Chad > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20140421/57e55eaa/attachment-0001.html>