I think you should use

export PATH="${PATH}:/opt/gnome/bin"

this appends your PATH-variable.

export PATH="/opt/gnome/bin"

overwrites it afaik.

I'd suggest that you do an

echo $PATH

. That will show you what your PATH variable currently is; it'll be a whole lot of directories, separated by colons. When you type in a command without a path, for example "ls", it will search through those directories, one by one, for a program entitled ls and run it.

Now if you try

export PATH="$PATH:/opt/gnome/bin"

and then

echo $PATH

again, you'll see that the PATH environment variable now has ":/opt/gnome/bin" stuck on the end, but is otherwise unchanged. (The colon is there to separate directories).

Using an equals instead of a colon will probably (I'm not quite sure here) result in it trying to look in a directory with a name something like /bin=/opt/gnome/bin every time it tries to run a command; since /bin= (presumably) doesn't exist, this will cause a problem. Especially as it's no longer looking in /bin (which includes, for example, ls); which can cause problems. (Your PATH might not have /bin at the end; it is merely used in an illustrative sense).

If you use

export PATH="/opt/gnome/bin"

, then your path will only consist of /opt/gnome/bin. Now try something simple, like ls... and then it's probably a good idea to close that terminal and open a new one.

CCC wrote:

Now if you try [code]export PATH="$PATH:/opt/gnome/bin"[/code] and then [code]echo $PATH[/code] again, you'll see that the PATH environment variable now has ":/opt/gnome/bin" stuck on the end, but is otherwise unchanged. (The colon is there to separate directories).

DON'T do this:

export PATH="$PATH:/opt/gnome/bin"

as environment variables can get confused depending upon the following character (a colon in this case). It is better to use

export PATH="${PATH}:/opt/gnome/bin"

Using $PATH by itself is not recommended. Using ${PATH} is as there is no ambiguity - the terminating curly-brace is definitive.

if you are confuse, the easiest way is to add the "/opt/gnome/bin"
to the last colon in the line PATH in your .bashrc

;)