[OS X TeX] $PATH question -- somewhat OT

Mon Jul 4 18:41:29 CEST 2005

Le 4 juil. 05 à 17:52, Aaron Jackson a écrit :

> On Jul 4, 2005, at 8:02 AM, Gerben Wierda wrote:
>
>> On Jul 4, 2005, at 13:14, Stephen Moye wrote:
>>
>>> I was checking the PATH variable in connection with another  
>>> problem and came across what looks like an anomaly. If I use  
>>> Terminal and type 'echo $PATH' I get this:
>>>
>>> /bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/teTeX/bin/ 
>>> powerpc-apple-darwin-current:/usr/local/bin
>>>
>>> but in xterm I get this:
>>>
>>> /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/bin
>>>
>>> Why are these different?
>>
>> Because I have not found a way to patch the X11 path settings for  
>> all users. The X11 path is not changed by the i-package setup.  
>> Maybe I have received from someone info on how to do this and I  
>> have lost it.
>
> However, this should not be a problem as you should never NEED to  
> use xterm.  Apple's terminal app should do everything you need and  
> works better with other aqua apps (as far as copying and pasting...).

There was a thread "[OS X TeX] X11" on similar topics at the end of  
May. More or less it seems there's no straightforward solution:

- Creating or patching a ~/.xinitrc for every user of a given Mac.  
But it's not system-wide.

- Modifying the system-wide /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc. The problem is  
that, in case some users have a custom ~/.xinitrc, this system-wide  
file isn't read for them.

- By creating or patching, again for every user of a Mac, a file  
~/.MacOSX/environment.plist. This affects all GUI applications  
launched by a given user and may (or rather will) break some. In  
particular it has been known to break i-Installer.

Unfortunately, all the FAQs I've browsed through, starting from  
Apple's own <http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1232.html>, refer  
to the dreaded environment.plist approach.