Other Help Topics :: modifying $PATH

<VOICE SRC="homestar">I think I has the solution!</VOICE>
For some reason, /etc/bash.bashrc sources /etc/profile, which in turn resets the PATH variable.
I dunno why it does this, though...it pretty much removes the whole point of having separate login and non-login shells. /etc/profile is already used when you login, so there's no point in sourcing it for non-login shells as well...it only makes things less versatile.
I could understand doing it the other way around, sourcing bashrc from profile so you can get all settings for a login shell, but the current setup is unnecessary since the settings are already available for child shells.

There is also both /etc/bash.bashrc and /etc/bashrc. It seems that /etc/bashrc is unused, but I'm not sure of this.

original here.