It appears that "export" only lasts for the duration or one session, that is, one xterm session. If I "export PATH=/home:$PATH", for example, it works in the xterm session in which it was invoked, but if I open anothe xterm session, it is not present.
Also, "printenv" shows no change in $PATH.
The Novell Newsgroup is reporting that that's the way it works but our local guy here says that "export", and the "SuSE 9 Bible", say it should globally change the environment.
Who is right? I'm using SuSE 10.2 SLES.
If it doesn't work gobally, then I have to edit some "rc" script $PATH statement to make it global. Where is such an "rc" file located. ...what's it's name?
I'll appreciate any replies.

Ron

There are (or should not be) that much rc files, so you can pretty quickly search trough them, use grep if you like. It's true that export, alias etc. only change the "local" environment. If you could that simply change the global environment, you would do that for all the other users as well - which is not what is right.