Everything You Need to Know About $PATH in Bash

How does PATH work in Linux? How does Linux know where to look for the commands that you type at the command-line? In this video you'll learn how the $PATH variable works in Linux. Specifically, we'll look at how this value is looked up in bash, and how you can modify it.

I'll also introduce you to the `which` command, which you can use to check which filepath bash is using for a given name (executable).

To modify PATH for
-a single user (normal or root): /home/username/.bash_profile
-all users except root: /etc/profile

[DamienzTheBand]

Thanks! Finally a video where someone speaks english, not bash!

[lewiscobb]

I just finished watching and making notes on every video in your Linux Basics Course. It was not an afternoon's work! Knowing nothing about Linux and recently getting an ARM board to work with (Beaglebone Black) these videos were perfect and got me going, gave me a sense of what is going on, and the confidence to know where or how to dig up additional info as I need it.

Thanks so much for the effort you put into these. Actually it may not have been much effort for you as it looks like a true labor of love and if you find a job that you really love, you will never actually work a day in your

Cheers and thanks from up here in Canada....

[phil.]

Learning software devlopment, these videos are invaluably useful to me for their practicality and real-world use cases. They make GREAT "just-in-time learning" material. Please keep up the good work, it's really helping! (description is very good too for later reference, nice touch)

[ilswibg]

Hello from Korea, I'm watching your video quite often and it's actually really helpful. Thank you for great quality of the video.
Take care!

[PoeLemic]

Thank you for teaching us this. It really helps me to understand how this works. I love how you walk-through it, and you also give the big picture. You are an awesome teacher of Linux materials.

[brainplot]

What you did at 1:48 blew my mind. I've been using Linux for over 5 years I never knew you could transpose words like that! This is why I'm compelled to always watch your videos :)

[lrosales]

Finally a Linux tutorial where I can actually understand the speaker ! Thank you for this!!! ;-)

[stevenspakowitz]

Thank you for the explanation on this, I failed to fully grasp $PATH until your video.

[usingvancedplzdontban]

This was a BRILLIANT tutorial, thank you so much for doing this! :D

[lwa.dev]

Great resource of information... bought your course... reading your recommendations on books for Linux sys admin...this is helping me with some Laravel $Path issues I’m having but your explanations are so on point!!!! Thankyou for creating this course👨🏽‍💻📚

[huntercoleman]

Another great and informative tutorial. Thanks!

[vegjpmg]

hope you see this, thank you!!! I'm learning so much from you and on my way to becoming a linux sysadmin!

[conceptualTriad]

Thanks so much for explaining this in a simple and easy-to-understand way. Super helpful!

[dawid_dahl]

Behold—understanding of that bloody PATH thingy has finally entered into my brain!

Thank you! 🙏🏻

[itpugil]

been working with Linux servers for a long while now, never got to understand what PATH is for, thanks for your tutorial now i understand its importance!

[OGBhyve]

Thanks! I was just thinking about how I didn't remember how to do this the other day.

[portentouslad]

thanks, I was wondering about the absolute paths to commands.

[tarunsolanki]

Thanks a lot. That was really helpful.

[mistaecco]

While messing with linux and learning stuff, I've been running a set of automatic youtube downlaod scripts to archive interesting and useful channels that I'd like to have for the future. You made the cut, but this video broke the file management, haha. "du -h" on my archive drive makes this one split into 17 different files called:
everything you need to know about
everything you need to know about /usr
everything you need to know about /usr/local
everything you need to know about /usr/local/sbin:
everything you need to know about /usr/local/sbin:/usr
and this keeps going until
everything you need to know about

[valentin]

HI, in the end of your video i tried to open the .bash_profile files and they were different, and hard coding the path didn't work, maybe the structure got updated ?