I have read the forum for my question but could not find ".bash_profile" file in /etc directory.
Instead there is a bashrc file. But it does not seem to be for path setting.

can anybody please let me know in detail how do I set the path I wish permanently for myself as well as systemwide.

Thanks in advance.

That is probably the main file which is used as the path for all users. But I always thought /etc/profile was the file you need to edit. If there isn't one then you may be able to create one. If you want to edit your personal path then there should be a file in your home directory called .bashrc which you could edit.

From my experience you can look in your home folder and edit a file called /<user home dir>/.bash_profile you can change it in .bashrc in the home folder too and the changes will take place because they both are run when a user logs in. There is probably one in /etc that you can edit too but I don't know it off the top of my head.

The other thing you might consider is going into /etc/skel and editing the .bash_profile in there and maybe even the .bash_logout... The /etc/skel folder is a skeleton of what a new users directory will look like. So if you make a change there and then create a new user they will get all of the changes that are there in their home folder automatically. as in I put a symlink in there called songs which mapped to /songs so any of the users that I have given access to my system automatically have a symlink to my songs folder. Understand? If not ask for more clairification and I'll explain better.