In the Ubuntu/liferay /etc/profile is used to change some environment variables. I probably do something wrong; but it doesn't work for me - the variables are not changed. EDIT: The problem is that data added to /etc/profile doesn't result in settings for the root-userid (only for normal users) - and the root-userid is the one used in the instructions.
No I'm not that experienced with Ubuntu. I used Debian earlier. But I solved this issue: I placed the same environment variable changes in the .bashrc file in the /root folder.