Session environment variables

It's simple to set environment variables that affect your whole session. At startup, SonicDE runs any script it finds in $HOME/.config/plasma-workspace/env whose file name ends in .sh, and keeps all the environment variables set by them. Any variable you want to set must also be exported. Your system is already set up with certain values, so in the case of PATH, for instance, you need to add to the existing value rather than replace it.

To add folders to your PATH, create a file named $HOME/.config/plasma-workspace/env/path.sh with contents like this:

export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH

Let's explore that. The export command tells the system that this should be kept and used when looking for files. Next comes the full name of the folder you want to add, here $HOME/.local/bin. Finally, there's the $PATH variable itself, because you want to add your new folder to the path, not replace it.

Warning: To refer to your home folder here, use $HOME, not ~.

That's often enough. As you get more familiar with the system, you'll probably want the same environment when using a console or reaching your machine through SSH. To do that, add something like this to the end of your .bashrc:

source $HOME/.config/plasma-workspace/env/path.sh

You can also see how this actually works. The X11 session starts through startplasma-x11. If you're interested in reading the code, it's in startkde/startplasma.cpp in the sonic-workspace repository. Search for plasma-workspace/env.

#See also

The Autostart module shows which scripts and applications run at login, and lets you add new ones.