Re: .bash_profile problems under gnome

[richard lyons <richard@the-place.net>]

On Saturday 05 June 2004 22:10, Adam Siepel wrote:
> > How X starts up can be a mystery.  I use "startx" which uses my
> > ~/.xsession.  Others do the same and report ~/.xsession is
> > ignored in favour of ~/.xinitrc.
> >
> > With that in mind, change the file in question.  The first line
> > should be:
> >
> >   #!/bin/bash --login
> >
> > which will make it a login shell, and your bash startup files
> > will be sourced.  The file in question must be made executable
> > (ie., chmod 755 ~/.xsession).
>
> Hmmm.  Tried that, didn't work with either xsession or xinitrc.  I
> spent some time wading through the startup scripts and it looked
> like I am supposed to be using .xsession.  There's also an
> .xsession-errors file in my home directory that seems to be freshly
> updated on each login.  Here are the contents:
>
> /etc/gdm/PreSession//Default: Registering your session with wtmp
> and utmp /etc/gdm/PreSession//Default: running: sessreg -a -w
> /var/log/wtmp -u /var/run/utmp -x "/var/lib/gdm/:0.Xservers" -h ""
> -l :0 acs /etc/gdm/Sessions//Gnome: checking /etc/login.defs for
> option UMASK /etc/gdm/Sessions//Gnome: /etc/login.defs: "UMASK" is
> "022" /etc/gdm/Sessions//Gnome: checking /etc/login.defs for option
> ULIMIT /etc/gdm/Sessions//Gnome: checking /etc/login.defs for
> option MAIL_DIR /etc/gdm/Sessions//Gnome: /etc/login.defs:
> "MAIL_DIR" is "/var/mail" /etc/gdm/Sessions//Gnome: using
> /etc/X11/Xsession.options for options
> SESSION_MANAGER=local/newton:/tmp/.ICE-unix/17355
>
> any other ideas?

I had this problem for months with one box.  I felt a bit foolish when 
I did
richard@0[richard]$  grep richard /etc/passwd
richard:x:1000:1000:richard:/home/richard:
(and some other lines not relevant here)

meaning no shell was specified.  Editing that line to say
richard:x:1000:1000:richard:/home/richard:/bin/bash

was all that was needed to get the ~/.bash[rc|_profile] files read 
everywhere - console, X-windows...  So, then I restored all the 
changes I had made to .xinitrc et al.

Perhaps yours is that easy too.
-- 
richard