Adding a Directory to a Path in .profile

Question

I am new to Ubuntu (coming from Windows 7) and I am trying to add a directory to my system path and for some reason I can't get it to work. I am using Ubuntu version 12.04 LTS

I tried following this article without success How to add a directory to the PATH?

Here are my steps:

1. In my home directory I am editing the .profile file.

2. Under the “# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists” section I added the following:

   if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then 
      PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH:home/vincent/google_appengine"  
   fi
   

3. I logout and log back in.

4. open the terminal window and type in:

   vincent@ubuntu:~$ dev_appserver.py 
   dev_appserver.py: command not found
   

The directory and files are in the location. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

• The code in the if statement is only used if there's a directory $HOME/bin is a directory
• I needs to be /home/vincent/google_appengine instead of home/vincent/google_appengine or (even better) $HOME/google_appengine because home is relative and /home is absolute.

Use

export PATH="$PATH:$HOME/google_appengine"

Remember anything in the $PATH before google_appengine will override it.

Answer 2

Add this line at the end of .profile(or not inside an if statement):

export PATH=$PATH:/home/vincent/google_appengine

Example .profile :

.

.

export LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"

export PATH=$PATH:/home/vincent/google_appengine