On 2013–08–03 Michael Ash wrote:

> I would like to bump my question back into the queue.  Thank you for your
> consideration.
>
> I would also like to add:  where can I put files that I would like context
> to "see".  For example if I have a file "env_letter.tex" which I include
> with \environment env_letter that includes a bunch of boilerplate, what is
> a good directory to put it in?

I don't use the PPA and I have no idea of how it updates the ConTeXt
tree. It might be that it only updates when a new beta is released
and not every time a third party module is updated, but I don't know
for sure.

first-setup pulls the modules from

  rsync://contextgarden.net/minimals/current/modules/

But updating manually might confuse the package manager. A better
solution if you need to update a module manually is to place it in a
directory, e.g. $HOME/usr/share/texmf and point the environment
variable TEXMFHOME to this directory.

If you need to update a module without touching the installation,
just copy the module (keep the TeX tree intact) to $TEXMFHOME. Check
the log file to ensure that the correct files are being used.

Marco