Setting Environment variable in Ubuntu

[UBUNTU 8.04(Hardy Heron)]

Method 1:
Open /etc/enviornment file. For open it, open a terminal and type

sudo gedit /etc/enviornment

Add relevant envirnment variable as,
<variable_name>="<value>"

e.g:
PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games"
ANT_OPTS="-Xms256M -Xmx512M"

Method 2:

Open a terminal and type following command.

sudo gedit /etc/profile

Add following entry in the end of the file.

export <variable_name>="<value>"

e.g:
export ANT_OPTS='-Xms256m -Xmx512m'