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?