This is a kind of stupid question. It's just curiosity. I know that the default path for users is stored in /etc/profile. I did a minimalist install so my /etc/profile just includes:

/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/games

I was of the opinion that other additions to the path would be included in ~/.bash_profile. But when I type

echo $PATH

I get:

/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games

and there is no mention of /usr/bin/X11 in either /etc/profile or ~/.bash_profile.

So my question is how did /usr/bin/X11 get added to $PATH ?

Maybe by /etc/login.defs which is used by su among other things.

Check /etc/login.defs for the ENV_PATH and ENV_SUPATH variables.
If that's not it then I dunno.

Oh yeah forgot, are you using X? If you are which login manager are you using, Xdm, Gdm, Kdm etc. These programs can also set $PATH

Thanks, that was it. They both include it. The ENV_PATH variable is set to exactly what I get with echo $PATH. Like I said, it was just curiosity, but thanks for the help :-)

Did you try checking ~/.bashrc for that $PATH declaration?

Yes probably it's gdm that is setting this.
This /usr/bin/X11 does not exist anymore on etch

It still exists as a link to /usr/bin for compatibility reasons.

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/prepostpath.htm has a nice discussion about the use of $PATH from Bash and where the path environment is typically set. That said, it is most certainly either the window manager or the desktop environment that is setting the additional directory in your environment path.