I have mostly been experimenting with ubuntu but recently was using a Red Hat Enterprise system and was surprised at a difference I found setting and displaying env variables.

In ubuntu I might have an interaction like this:

acomber@mail:~$ export MY_VAR=i686-linux
acomber@mail:~$ echo $MY_VAR
i686-linux
acomber@mail:~$ echo "$MY_VAR"
i686-linux

But on RHEL:

acomber@mail:~$ export MY_VAR=i686-linux
acomber@mail:~$ echo $MY_VAR

acomber@mail:~$ echo "$MY_VAR"
i686-linux

I know this is a ubuntu forum but why the difference? Why do I need to enclose in quotes on RH? There are no spaces in the variable name?