inserting entries into /etc/profile
 

For some ungodly reason I've been tasked with building a OpenNMS server on OpenSUSE 10.3 even though I've never touched Linux.... I'm following the directions from

.howtoforge.com/opennms_network_management, but am stuck on...

Setup Environment variable for java home. Insert the following entries in /etc/profile.

JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/java"
export JAVA_HOME


How do I enter in the above statements into /etc/profile?

just open the file in whatever text editor you like as root and add them, then save the file.

If I'm reading your question right then what you need is a text editor. If you're in the console then use either nano, vii or emacs. I myself perfer nano for just editting text and use emacs when I'm coding/testing.

Anyways once you're in the etc directory just type "nano profile" and take it from there.
Apologies if I misunderstood what you asked.

Try either of the following methods:

method 1:
Fire the following command:
Press "Enter" key
Then press "Escape" Key & then "I"
Then copy and paste the following into this file:
method 2:
Fire the following command:
Then copy and paste the following into this file:

Does it matter where in that file I insert:

JAVA_HOME="/usr/lib/java"
export JAVA_HOME

And how I subsequently save the changes I made?

Thank you for your easy to follow instructions!

It really doesn't matter. These two lines are actually bash commands that get executed when the machine starts. However since you are using SuSE 10.2, edit /etc/profile.local instead. If the file doesn't exist, then create a new one with just those two lines.


The /etc/profile script will run the /etc/profile.local script.

using the vi method to save the file you would need to do hit 'esc' after you type and then a :wq If you are in vi and want to exit without saving any changes, do a :q! .. also i would recommend making a test document and playing around with various commands if you plan on doing a lot of changes to text files using vi.. there are tons of guides, just google vi commands it should give a good guide.. best thing to do would be make a new document somewhere.. just type vi test.txt and play around in there so you don't mess anything up..

not really sure about exiting using nano -- i primary stick to vi as its easy to navigate once you get some commands committed to memory.

enjoy

And (depending on your distro) there may be the more
elegant option of sticking individual files into the
/etc/profile.d/ directory.


Cheers,
Tink