The LightDM does not read $HOME/.profile, so $HOME/.cargo/bin is not included in PATH

[amosbatto]

In LInux/UNIX, the installation program for Rust 1.15.1 adds the following line to $HOME/.profile:

export PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH"

This should make make the rustc and cargo commands work without their full paths, but it doesn't work in systems which use LightDM to login. See:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=636108
LightDM is the default display manager for Ubuntu (and for Debian and Fedora when installing a Desktop Environment which is not GNOME or KDE), so a sizable proportion of the people who use Linux will encounter this problem.

I have filed a bug report at LightDM, asking that it read $HOME/.profile like other display managers:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/lightdm/+bug/1671026

However, I don't know if that bug will ever get fixed. It would be helpful if the Rust installer would auto-detect whether the system used LightDM to login. If so, also add the following line to $HOME/.xsessionrc :

export PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH"

Unfortunately, it isn't easy to auto-detect the use of LightDM (http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/20370/is-there-a-simple-linux-command-that-will-tell-me-what-my-display-manager-is), but the installation script should be able to figure it out on the most common Linux/UNIX distributions.

[est31]

Just note that the bug is fixed on ubuntu. Lightdm sources ~/.profile there: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lightdm/+bug/794315

Only pure debian is the problem (and other distros that dont base on ubuntu but use Lightdm obviously).

[nagisa]

Report either against cargo or rustup.

See also rust-lang/rustup#478

[steveklabnik]

Yes, this is the wrong tracker. Thanks!