Risposte:
leggi http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html#Bash-Startup-Files :
When Bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a
non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads
and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file
exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile,
~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes
commands from the first one that exists and is readable. The
--noprofile option may be used when the shell is started to inhibit
this behavior.
caricano ~/.profile
anche altre shell (zsh, tcsh) .. quindi inserirò cose ambientali ~/.profile
.
aggiornamento relativo a mac osx (grazie a @Matt B) :
per i programmi gui leggi http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#qa/qa2001/qa1067.html e modifica ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist
con cura.
~/.MacOSX/environment.plist
. Vedi maggiori informazioni qui: astro.washington.edu/users/rowen/AquaEnvVar.html .