How can I edit the $PATH on linux?
To permanently store your path, you have a few options.
I suggest you read the Ubuntu community wiki on Environment Variables but the short answer is the best place is ~/.profile
for your per-user PATH setting or /etc/profile
for global settings.
Change PATH:
Append something to your PATH
export PATH=$PATH:/your/new/path/here
Override your PATH (save backup before!)
export PATH=:/your/new/path/here:/another/new/path/here
How to permanently set $PATH on Linux/Unix
There are multiple ways to do it. The actual solution depends on the purpose.
The variable values are usually stored in either a list of assignments or a shell script that is run at the start of the system or user session. In case of the shell script you must use a specific shell syntax and export
or set
commands.
System wide/etc/environment
List of unique assignments. Allows references. Perfect for adding system-wide directories like /usr/local/something/bin
to PATH
variable or defining JAVA_HOME
. Used by PAM and systemd.
/etc/environment.d/*.conf
List of unique assignments. Allows references. Perfect for adding system-wide directories like /usr/local/something/bin
to PATH
variable or defining JAVA_HOME
. The configuration can be split into multiple files, usually one per each tool (Java, Go, and Node.js). Used by systemd that by design do not pass those values to user login shells.
/etc/xprofile
Shell script executed while starting X Window System session. This is run for every user that logs into X Window System. It is a good choice for PATH
entries that are valid for every user like /usr/local/something/bin
. The file is included by other script so use POSIX shell syntax not the syntax of your user shell.
/etc/profile
and /etc/profile.d/*
Shell script. This is a good choice for shell-only systems. Those files are read only by shells in login mode.
/etc/<shell>.<shell>rc
. Shell script. This is a poor choice because it is single shell specific. Used in non-login mode.
User session~/.pam_environment
. List of unique assignments, no references allowed. Loaded by PAM at the start of every user session irrelevant if it is an X Window System session or shell. You cannot reference other variables including HOME
or PATH
so it has limited use. Used by PAM.
~/.xprofile
Shell script. This is executed when the user logs into X Window System system. The variables defined here are visible to every X application. Perfect choice for extending PATH
with values such as ~/bin
or ~/go/bin
or defining user specific GOPATH
or NPM_HOME
. The file is included by other script so use POSIX shell syntax not the syntax of your user shell. Your graphical text editor or IDE started by shortcut will see those values.
~/.profile
, ~/.<shell>_profile
, ~/.<shell>_login
Shell script. It will be visible only for programs started from terminal or terminal emulator. It is a good choice for shell-only systems. Used by shells in login mode.
~/.<shell>rc
. Shell script. This is a poor choice because it is single shell specific. Used by shells in non-login mode.
Notes
/etc/environment
List of unique assignments. Allows references. Perfect for adding system-wide directories like /usr/local/something/bin
to PATH
variable or defining JAVA_HOME
. Used by PAM and systemd.
/etc/environment.d/*.conf
List of unique assignments. Allows references. Perfect for adding system-wide directories like /usr/local/something/bin
to PATH
variable or defining JAVA_HOME
. The configuration can be split into multiple files, usually one per each tool (Java, Go, and Node.js). Used by systemd that by design do not pass those values to user login shells.
/etc/xprofile
Shell script executed while starting X Window System session. This is run for every user that logs into X Window System. It is a good choice for PATH
entries that are valid for every user like /usr/local/something/bin
. The file is included by other script so use POSIX shell syntax not the syntax of your user shell.
/etc/profile
and /etc/profile.d/*
Shell script. This is a good choice for shell-only systems. Those files are read only by shells in login mode.
/etc/<shell>.<shell>rc
. Shell script. This is a poor choice because it is single shell specific. Used in non-login mode.
~/.pam_environment
. List of unique assignments, no references allowed. Loaded by PAM at the start of every user session irrelevant if it is an X Window System session or shell. You cannot reference other variables includingHOME
orPATH
so it has limited use. Used by PAM.~/.xprofile
Shell script. This is executed when the user logs into X Window System system. The variables defined here are visible to every X application. Perfect choice for extendingPATH
with values such as~/bin
or~/go/bin
or defining user specificGOPATH
orNPM_HOME
. The file is included by other script so use POSIX shell syntax not the syntax of your user shell. Your graphical text editor or IDE started by shortcut will see those values.~/.profile
,~/.<shell>_profile
,~/.<shell>_login
Shell script. It will be visible only for programs started from terminal or terminal emulator. It is a good choice for shell-only systems. Used by shells in login mode.~/.<shell>rc
. Shell script. This is a poor choice because it is single shell specific. Used by shells in non-login mode.
Notes
GNOME on Wayland starts a user login shell to get the environment. It effectively uses the login shell configurations ~/.profile
, ~/.<shell>_profile
, ~/.<shell>_login
files.
Man pages- environment
- environment.d https://linux.die.net/man/1/environment.d
- bash
- dash
Distribution-specific documentation- Ubuntu
- Arch Linux
Related
- Ubuntu
- Arch Linux
Related
Difference between Login Shell and Non-Login Shell?
What is this $PATH in Linux and how to modify it
To get your path current $PATH
variable type in:
echo $PATH
It tells your shell where to look for binaries.
Yes, you can change it - for example add to the $PATH
folder with your custom scripts.
So: if your scripts are in /usr/local/myscripts
to execute them you will have to type in a full path to the script: /usr/local/myscripts/myscript.sh
After changing your $PATH
variable you can just type in myscript.sh
to execute script.
Here is an example of $PATH
from RHEL:
/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/home/user/bin
To change your $PATH
you have to either edit ~/.profile
(or ~/.bash_profile
) for user or global $PATH
setting in /etc/profile
.
One of the consequences of having inaccurate $PATH
variables is that shell will not be able to find and execute programs without a full $PATH
.
Change path in linux
If you put the following in your .bashrc
you will get the newer R
first, because bash will search that directory before the other one.
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
Update: Since the OP is apparently using tcsh
, the correct way to set the path is to use setenv
inside ~/.profile
or ~/.tcshrc
.
setenv PATH /usr/local/bin:$PATH
How do I change the order of $PATH?
You can set your PATH
in the file .bash_profile
, which is in your home directory.
More specifically, you can simply add the following line to the end of that file
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
This results in /usr/local/bin
being prepended to the existing PATH
. In other words, the folder /usr/local/bin
is inserted in front of your PATH
, and so it would have the highest priority. You can also append a folder to your path by doing
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin
In general, you can set the order of the folders or files that you export in a similar way as the following:
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin:/Users/pathreskoo/anaconda/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin:/usr/local/git/bin
Note: this is not the only place you can set the PATH
, but it is a common one.
Set a temporary environment ($PATH)
When I have several variables to set, I write a wrapper script which I then use as a prefix to the command that I want to modify. That lets me use the prefix either
- applying to a single command, such as
make
, or - initializing a shell, so that subsequent commands use the altered settings.
I use wrappers for
- setting compiler options (such as
clang
, to set theCC
variable, making configure scripts "see" it as the chosen compiler), - setting locale variables, to test with POSIX
C
versusen_US
versusen_US.UTF-8
, etc. - testing with reduced environments, such as in
cron
.
Each of the wrappers does what is needed to identify the proper PATH
, LD_LIBRARY_PATH
, and similar variables.
For example, I wrote this ad hoc script about ten years ago to test with a local build of python:
#!/bin/bash
ver=2.4.2
export TOP=/usr/local/python-$ver
export PATH=$TOP/bin:$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`newpath -n LD_LIBRARY_PATH -bd $TOP/lib $TOP/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/$ver`
if test -d $TOP
then
exec $*
else
echo no $TOP
exit 1
fi
and used it as with-python-2.4.2
myscript.
Some wrappers simply call another script.
For example, I use this wrapper around the configure script to setup variables for cross-compiling:
#!/bin/sh
# $Id: cfg-mingw,v 1.7 2014/09/20 20:49:31 tom Exp $
# configure to cross-compile using mingw32
BUILD_CC=${CC:-gcc}
unset CC
unset CXX
TARGET=`choose-mingw32`
if test -n "$TARGET"
then
PREFIX=
test -d /usr/$TARGET && PREFIX="--prefix=/usr/$TARGET"
cfg-normal \
--with-build-cc=$BUILD_CC \
--host=$TARGET \
--target=$TARGET \
$PREFIX "$@"
else
echo "? cannot find MinGW compiler in path"
exit 1
fi
where choose-mingw32
and cfg-normal
are scripts that (a) find the available target name for the cross-compiler and (b) provide additional options to the configure script.
Others may suggest shell aliases or functions. I do not use those for this purpose because my command-line shell is usually tcsh
, while I run these commands from (a) other shell scripts, (b) directory editor, or (c) text-editor. Those use the POSIX shell (except of course, for scripts requiring specific features), making aliases or functions of little use.
How do I set Path Variables in Linux just like in windows?
You could set your path variable but you really shouldn't be doing it like that.
Since you don't specify which version of Linux I'll be explaining it for Ubuntu and Arch Linux.
You should install openjdk packages with your package manager like so:
Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk
Arch linux:
sudo pacman -S jdk8-openjdk
You can then use the following commands to change between those versions:
Ubuntu
sudo update-alternatives --config java
Arch Linux
archlinux-java set java-8-openjdk
You can even launch specific apps in specific versions but this would be too much to cover for now.
Setting the path variable regardless
To change your $PATH you have to either edit ~/.profile
(or ~/.bash_profile
) for each user or global $PATH setting in /etc/profile
.
Simply append another path to it like so:
/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/custom/path
You can also do:
PATH = $PATH:/custom/path
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