Adding a directory to PATH in Ubuntu [closed]

Question

I am a new user of Linux, just switched from Windows. I installed ActiveTcl-8.5 in /opt/ActiveTcl-8.5/, now I want to add its bin directory to the UNIX path.

I have read a number of articles from the net and got confused about which file to modify. My /home/tofayel directory contains .bashrc, .bash_logout, .bash_history, and .profile; but not .bash_login and .bash_profile.

Where do I add the extra lines to add /opt/ActiveTcl-8.5/bin to PATH?

Answer 1

The file .bashrc is read when you start an interactive shell. This is the file that you should update. E.g:

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/ActiveTcl-8.5/bin 

Restart the shell for the changes to take effect or source it, i.e.:

source .bashrc 

Answer 2

Actually I would advocate .profile if you need it to work from scripts, and in particular, scripts run by /bin/sh instead of Bash. If this is just for your own private interactive use, .bashrc is fine, though.