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I am trying to understand how classpath really works. After searching around the web this is where I have reached so far: I have added export CLASSPATH="/home/foo:/home/foo/Java_code/my_code" at /etc/environment . I am running Ubuntu by the way. Java finds the path and compiles without problem. The problem is that if I change the CLASSPATH and then I do: source /etc/environment , the new CLASSPATH is not applied. It is applied if and only if I restart the system. For example if I delete the export CLASSPATH="/home/foo:/home/foo/Java_code/my_code" line, then I do source /etc/environment and I finally do echo $CLASSPATH , what I get is /home/foo:/home/foo/Java_code/my_code . I think I should get an empty line, shouldn't I? Is there a way to apply the changes in PATH or CLASSPATH variables immediately without having to restart the system? It might help you know that the /etc/environment file originally contained only the following line: PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games" Thank you for your time.

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