How do I "globalize" binaries in Linux?

Solution 1:

All directories listed in $PATH are searched for executables.

Solution 2:

To enable your custom path by default you can add:

export PATH="/myname/local/bin:$PATH"

at the bottom of your ~/.bashrc (for user only) or /etc/profile (for all system users) or any new file like /etc/profile.d/mypath.sh

Solution 3:

The search path for binaries is stored in an environment variable, PATH

You can inspect the current value:

[steven@scstop:~]% echo $PATH

/opt/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin

Note how it's a colon separated list of directories. When you type "mybinary" at the prompt, your shell will go through these directories (in order) and execute the first one it finds.

To add /myname/local/bin to the PATH, do this (in a bash-like shell)

export PATH=$PATH:/myname/local/bin