GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 402556
The Run Application dialogue doesn't include a user's $PATH
Last modified: 2007-02-17 20:59:22 UTC
If, for example, you have added directories to your path in ~/.bashrc, they will not be searched when you run a command. You have to put the path in /etc/profile for it to work (on Linux).
Ubuntu bug report about this: (http://launchpad.net/bugs/82330): Unlike a bash shell, the alt-f2 runbox only uses the system path. Any scripts/apps/whatever in ~/bin won't be found with alt-f2. I worked around this by adding ~/bin to the path in /etc/profile if it exists.
The Ubuntu bug has been reassigning to pam, we think that it doesn't make sense to patch applications for that, the PATH should be updated rather
You can set PATH in .xsession. There's nothing to fix in GNOME for this.