Understanding environment variables

So I have completed all the command line material on codecademy and I still have questions.

  1. First, is there a simple way to reset the environment to default? Currently it is setup according to the lingua franca exercise.

  2. I would like to improve my understanding of the PATH variable. I tried to install some python packages and was getting errors about files not being in PATH. When I tried using the packages I verified that the installation was not successful. I think I can use nano to change the PATH variable but I’m not feeling that confident that I would do it right.

  3. Can I read the manual?

Hello, Hola, Ni Hao, Bonjour
Lingua Franca > man man
bash: man: command not found
Lingua Franca > $MANPATH
bash: /mingw64/local/man:/mingw64/share/man:/usr/local/man:/usr/share/man:/usr/man:/share/man: No such file or directory
Lingua Franca >

I thought maybe its not included with GIT BASH but the existence of the MANPATH variable has got me wondering.

  1. Last question. I Recently heard about something called virtual environments, which I understand is a way to temporarily change environment variables without affecting environment variables globally. Sorry if this is the wrong place, could be more of a python question. Can anyone tell me how to use a virtual environment?
  1. is solved! Deleting the the contents of .bash_profile saving and restarting git bash has returned it to normal

Hi,
I’ve encountered the same issue. How exactly can I delete the contents of .bash_profile? Thanks.