9 ms·

always felt like the Windows mechanism of having at least one non-ambiguously global place to set environment variables to be super useful to deal with (instead

by rtpg 11y ago

always felt like the Windows mechanism of having at least one non-ambiguously global place to set environment variables to be super useful to deal with (instead of the ubuntu '/etc/environment/', except when it's '.profile', except when it's '.pam_environment', except when its '.bashrc')

whoopdedo 11y ago
Baseless argument. Windows also splits the environment between the HKLM and HKCU hives. It just gives you a handy window to edit both at once. .profile is a login script, not the recommended place for setting variables although historically it has been because /etc/environment and ~/.pam_environment are relatively recent additions to Linux. (Why didn't distros adopt the ~/.env though that other Unixes, like AIX, use?) But there Windows also has the profile login script and I don't know if it's possible to export environment variables from it but that serves the same purpose of ~/.profile. So all those things you say are bad about Linux exist on Windows.
- gpvos 11y ago
  I never heard of /etc/environment and ~/.pam_environment before, and thought /etc/profile was the place for variables for all users, with only .profile and .bashrc to check for user variables. Looks like Linux is going the Windows way by providing too many places to configure things.
- rtpg 11y ago
  I'm not against there being many different hooks in your average linux distro, but googling 'how to set environment variables in Ubuntu' gives you 20 different answers, with many conflicting statements between them.
- telotortium 11y ago
  Having worked with AIX fairly recently, I was under the impression that ~/.env was merely a common value for the ENV environment variable, which is a shell script that plays the same role for Korn shell (and possibly POSIX sh) as ~/.bashrc does for Bash. This page seems to support that interpretation: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_aix_71/com.ibm.aix.osdevice/env_file.htm%23env_file?lang=en http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_aix_71/com.... On the other hand, I think /etc/environment on Linux (not sure about AIX) and ~/.pam_environment are not shell scripts.
yokohummer7 11y ago
What's worse, Linux (or Unix) requires the user to re-login to make the changed environment variables take effect. Whereas in Windows they are applied immediately, so you don't have to re-login after changing PATH.
- hikarudo 11y ago
  source ~/.bashrc
  - anon4 11y ago
    And this will change it for programs I launch by clicking on the launcher menu?
    - cosarara97 11y ago
      You could have the launcher source your .profile/.env/whatever on every app launch. Count it as a bug in your launcher ;)
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  Actually Explorer manually reloads environment variables when you change them, and nothing else is affected.
  - yokohummer7 11y ago
    That's a neat trick, thanks for pointing me out. I've always wondered how Windows could have accomplished that. It's a shame that Linux doesn't have such an equivalent. If we are to do the same thing in Linux, a login shell (bash or zsh or even GNOME) would be the right place to implement?
    - MatmaRex 11y ago
      There's a recent post from Raymond Chen about this, actually: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/09/15/10641604.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/09/15/10641...

by rtpg 11y ago

whoopdedo 11y ago

Baseless argument. Windows also splits the environment between the HKLM and HKCU hives. It just gives you a handy window to edit both at once. .profile is a login script, not the recommended place for setting variables although historically it has been because /etc/environment and ~/.pam_environment are relatively recent additions to Linux. (Why didn't distros adopt the ~/.env though that other Unixes, like AIX, use?) But there Windows also has the profile login script and I don't know if it's possible to export environment variables from it but that serves the same purpose of ~/.profile. So all those things you say are bad about Linux exist on Windows.

gpvos 11y ago
I never heard of /etc/environment and ~/.pam_environment before, and thought /etc/profile was the place for variables for all users, with only .profile and .bashrc to check for user variables. Looks like Linux is going the Windows way by providing too many places to configure things.
rtpg 11y ago
I'm not against there being many different hooks in your average linux distro, but googling 'how to set environment variables in Ubuntu' gives you 20 different answers, with many conflicting statements between them.
telotortium 11y ago
Having worked with AIX fairly recently, I was under the impression that ~/.env was merely a common value for the ENV environment variable, which is a shell script that plays the same role for Korn shell (and possibly POSIX sh) as ~/.bashrc does for Bash. This page seems to support that interpretation: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_aix_71/com.ibm.aix.osdevice/env_file.htm%23env_file?lang=en http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/ssw_aix_71/com.... On the other hand, I think /etc/environment on Linux (not sure about AIX) and ~/.pam_environment are not shell scripts.

yokohummer7 11y ago

What's worse, Linux (or Unix) requires the user to re-login to make the changed environment variables take effect. Whereas in Windows they are applied immediately, so you don't have to re-login after changing PATH.

hikarudo 11y ago
source ~/.bashrc
- anon4 11y ago
  And this will change it for programs I launch by clicking on the launcher menu?
  - cosarara97 11y ago
    You could have the launcher source your .profile/.env/whatever on every app launch. Count it as a bug in your launcher ;)
Dylan16807 11y ago
Actually Explorer manually reloads environment variables when you change them, and nothing else is affected.
- yokohummer7 11y ago
  That's a neat trick, thanks for pointing me out. I've always wondered how Windows could have accomplished that. It's a shame that Linux doesn't have such an equivalent. If we are to do the same thing in Linux, a login shell (bash or zsh or even GNOME) would be the right place to implement?
  - MatmaRex 11y ago
    There's a recent post from Raymond Chen about this, actually: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/09/15/10641604.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2015/09/15/10641...