Linux – How to set environment variables for a Gnome Wayland session

You can always put them in .profile, so they should apply for any login.

Problems occur however, if a .bash_login exists: In that case, bash won't read .profile.

If you want your variables from .profile to apply both in bash and for other logins, don't use .bash_login! Put bash specific variables in .bashrc instead.

Or alternatively, include .profile from .bash_login

But, after all, why should virtualenv be active in global gnome-shell context ?

This would surely break all system-level python application installed.

So the only safe way to start a virtualenv application is to start from a terminal shell

Probably it is safer to activate environment in the ~/.bash_profile ~/.zprofile, enabling login-shell option in terminal.

The alternative setting, using ~/.bashrc, should be avoided because it can cause problems in subshells.

So,

• enable the login-option
• start the terminal (or bash/zsh --login in xterm ...)
• "workon"
• then start emacs (server) from the terminal shell.

To run a virtualenv application from gnome-shell, the desktop file must exec a dedicated wrapper script that source env activate before execution.

For a generic wrapper (similar to ruby 'bundle exec' and rvm stuff), see:

• https://gist.github.com/datagrok/2199506

Maybe a 're-hash' is required ...

• https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/blob/develop/virtualenv_embedded/activate.sh#L76