Re: setting in /etc/profile in debian

[Bob McGowan <rmcgowan@veritas.com>]

Liam, I think you have a good point. So how do I
change its default if I want the file to be sourced
when I login using GDM. 

Thanks
Yong


--- Liam O'Toole <liam.p.otoole@gmail.com> wrote:

> > On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:55:37 -0600
> > bob@proulx.com (Bob Proulx) wrote:
> > 
>> > > yong lee wrote:
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
>>> > > > I have to manually do source /etc/profile to see
> > the new changes
>>> > > > after I open a new terminal window everytime. 
> > Even a reboot does
>>> > > > not help. Does anyone have any idea ?
>> > > 
>> > > You say that even a reboot does not help and that
> > seems very strange
>> > > to me because I am sure that you would log in
> > after that point. :-)
>> > > Are you using a shell other than a POSIX
> > compatible one such as csh?
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> > If the OP logs in using GDM, then (by default)
> > /etc/profile is not
> > sourced.
> > 
> > -- 
> > 
> > Liam
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
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> > 
> > 



As I don't use GDM or gnome, I can't tell you exactly where to do this.  But,
you can add to the terminal command in the menu (and anywhere else you want)
the '-l' option (at least, you can in KDE, I think the same should work in
Gnome), which tells the terminal program to run as if it were a login shell.

It will then read the startup scripts in /etc, as you want.

One thing not mentioned by others is which files from /etc a shell will use
depends on the shell.  The /etc/profile file is read by Bourne shells, such as
bash or ksh.  If you are using csh or tcsh, it will *not* read /etc/profile, it
will instead read /etc/csh.cshrc (read by every shell) and /etc/csh.login (read
by login shell only).  Note on some systmes these csh startup files are called
/etc/cshrc and /etc/login, respectively.

If you're using csh/tcsh, changes to /etc/profile wiil do nothing.  See the man
pages, section "FILES", for a full list of rc files for each shell.

Bob McGowan