ICEWM-ENV(5)

💅 ICEWM-ENV(5) — the icewm environment configuration file, bestie

okay so real talk: this is page ICEWM-ENV(5) from the Standards, Environments and Macros girlies, and it's literally the cheat sheet for env — the lil file that sets up your whole vibe before IceWM even wakes up. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

icewm-env — the icewm environment configuration file. that's it, that's the queen 👑

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

$ICEWM_PRIVCFG/env
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/icewm/env
$HOME/.icewm/env
/usr/etc/icewm/env
/usr/share/icewm/env

five possible homes for your env file, and she only ever picks one. main character energy, honestly.

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so icewm-session(1) reads this file called env and slurps up extra environment variables from it before it does anything else — like, before literally anything. no cap, it's the first thing on the agenda.

then those variables get propagated to all the other processes, including icewm(1), through their environment. so everybody downstream inherits the vibe. 💖

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🎀 FORMAT 🎀

each line gets run through POSIX shell expansion by wordexp(3). yes, every line. she's thorough like that.

comment lines starting with a hash-sign (#) are ignored — go off, leave notes for your future self.

icewm-session(1) will load those expanded lines that contain a name, followed by an equals sign, followed by the value (which may be empty). that's the whole shape of it: name = value. simple. iconic.

⭐ also: the word unset begins a line with names to be removed from the environment. so if something's gotta go, unset is your girl.

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🧚 EXAMPLES 🧚

# This is a comment.
# And another.

XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP="ICEWM"
XDG_MENU_PREFIX="unexicon-"

START_DATE=`date`
START_FROM=`pwd`

look at that. comments, values in quotes, and backtick command substitution just doing its lil thing. chef's kiss 🔥

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🌈 FILES 🌈

icewm-session(1) looks for the env file in the following locations:

$ICEWM_PRIVCFG/env
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/icewm/env
$HOME/.icewm/env
/usr/etc/icewm/env
/usr/share/icewm/env

the locations are searched in the order listed; the first file found is read and the remainder ignored. so don't come crying if your second choice never gets a look-in — that's literally the rules. 💀

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• icewm(1)
• icewm-session(1)
• icewm-startup(5)

iykyk, go read those next 🫶

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Brian Bidulock <mailto:bidulock@openss7.org>. thank you brian, we love you for this one 🙈

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🍓 LICENSE 🍓

IceWM is licensed under the GNU Library General Public License. See the COPYING file in the distribution. read it, bestie, it's giving responsible queen.

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and that's the page, fr fr ✨ sign-off time: this was icewm 4.1.0, dated 2026-08-06, page ICEWM-ENV(5) — go forth and set your env variables 💅🎀