[AUCTeX] Re: Package doesn't recognize my Fink teTeX installation

[Christian Schlauer]

David Kastrup <address@hidden> writes:

> Chad Groft <address@hidden> writes:

[...]

>> The general problem is that Fink installs its packages into a
>> separate directory /sw/bin, which is not included in the usual
>> $PATH.  Fink's setup includes creating a file called ".profile" in
>> my home directory which adds /sw/bin (among others) to $PATH when I
>> work in Terminal.  Emacs, though, doesn't look at this file at all,
>> and thus doesn't normally see the outside utilities.
>
> That is not how things are supposed to work.  .profile is to be called
> by your _login_ shell, and the whole desktop is supposed to inherit
> its settings, including any Emacs you happen to call.

So calling Emacs from a terminal window or clicking an icon in the
window manager shouldn't make a difference, is that right, David? Then
Mac OS X is strange, see below. The following is from my notes when I
set up a Mac OS X 10.3 box with TeXlive, AUCTeX and CVS Emacs, maybe
it helps:

In Emacs 22.0.50, the manual says that if Emacs is run from the Finder
or the Dock as a GUI application, it inherits no environment variable
values (from ~/.profile, for example). The consequence is that AUCTeX,
for example, can not find the `latex' executable, if the path to the
TeXlive executables is defined in ~/.profile. At the same time, it is
no problem to run `latex' from a terminal. The `Technical Q&A QA1255'
at <URL:http://developer.apple.com> describes how to set environment
variables for applications that are started from the finder: these
environment variables are set in the file ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist,
which follows a special syntax described in `Technical Q&A Q1067'.
Note that you have to log off and on again for the changes to take
effect.

See also <URL:http://www.astro.washington.edu/owen/AquaEnvVar.html>.

-- 
Christian Schlauer