Réponses:
lire http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html#Bash-Startup-Files :
When Bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a
non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads
and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file
exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile,
~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes
commands from the first one that exists and is readable. The
--noprofile option may be used when the shell is started to inhibit
this behavior.
d'autres shells se chargent ~/.profile
aussi (zsh, tcsh) .. donc, je mettrais des trucs d'environnement dans ~/.profile
.
mise à jour liée à mac osx (merci @Matt B) :
pour les programmes gui, lisez http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#qa/qa2001/qa1067.html et modifiez-les ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist
attentivement.
~/.MacOSX/environment.plist
. Voir plus d'informations ici: astro.washington.edu/users/rowen/AquaEnvVar.html .