I am having problems changing the PATH variable permanently. I can, as should be, change it through the command line for my current bash session.

However, changing it permanently doesn't work. Changing /etc/profile doesn't give any effects at all. I can erase/comment the lines that set the PATH and no change occurs, the PATH is still the same. And, yes, I do relogin after I've made the changes. I've also restarted in case the script is executed before gdm.

If it matters I run Ubuntu 5.04.

the .bashrc and .bash_profile in your home directory maybe overriding them. Look at those 2 files.

Doesn't work either. I can write whatever I want to the .bash_profile in my home directory and nothing happens.

A session in Linux can be either interactive or non-interactive.
* Interactive is when you log in physically, and the environment is populated with whatever is in ~/.bash_profile and /etc/profile
* Non-interactive is like when you execute a script containing the line #!/bin/bash and this populates the environment only with ~/.bashrc and /etc/bash.bashrc

(I put all my stuff in /etc/bash.bashrc like JAVA_HOME, CLASS_PATH, etc, so I know all my programs can see all my env variables)

bashrc can be sourced from the profile, if you wish.

When making changes to your profile, it can be forced/reloaded with:

Gnome-terminal
To attach your profile to gnome-terminal:
Open a terminal. Click on Edit, Profiles..., high-light Default (or whichever you prefer), Edit, go to the Title and Command tab, and tick the box that says "Run command as login shell".

Close the terminal and start another one, and the stuff in your .bash_profile should be loaded now.

PS, also check /etc/login.defs for other options.