bash & /etc/profile

[geezer]

Had to re-install 12.04.

Copied the /etc/profile file from the backup made just prior to re-installing.

For some unknown (to me) reason, bash doesn't seem to have executed the complete file.

I have appended the following lines to the end of /etc/profile for many years and they have always been picked up by bash. Now they are not being executed for some reason:

export PATH="${PATH}":/usr/local/share/QTAwk
export QTAWK=/usr/local/share/QTAwk
export TZ="EST5EDT"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}":/usr/lib64/

When i execute 'echo $PATH' on the xterm command line I get:

/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games

i.e., the PATH without '/usr/local/share/QTAwk' appended on the end. The other variables I set are also not present.

Have I forgotten something??

[GreyGeek]

What wrong with just using

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/share/QTAwk

i.e., leave out the quotes and braces.

[geezer]

What wrong with just using

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/share/QTAwk

i.e., leave out the quotes and braces.

It works with and wthout the quotes and braces when I issue the command on the terminal. So ther's nothing wrong without them I guess.

But what is then puzzling is why the "export QTAWK=/usr/local/share/QTAwk" does not work in /etc/profile, but again does when I Iissue it on the xterminal command line by pasting from the editor. No quotes or braces.

I can paste all of the lines from the editor, as is, and they work fine in the xterminal. Just not in /etc/profile. ?.?.?.?.?.?

It would seem that /etc/profile is not being read by bash when bash is booted.

[james147]

Does it work from ~/.profile? or ~/.bashrc?

Did you logout and back in after coping the file? As far as I know /etc/profile and ~/.profile are only read at login and not when an interactive shell is started (such as konsole).

[geezer]

Problem fixed.

Switched to a login terminal with "Ctrl-Alt-F3" and got an error message from bash about an unexpected 'fi'.

sudo kate

and found an extra 'fi' line in /etc/profile

Deleted the line, saved the file and all works now. Cleaned up the backup files also.

Thanks for the suggestions.