Greg Wooledge wrote: ... > I must have said this a hundred times, but... it depends on HOW you login.
yes! login vs. non-login. the rest left in because it is useful and notable. > The only times .profile is read are when you have a login shell (from a > pure text console login, or an ssh login, or something like "su - gene"), > or if some other file that IS read dots it in. > > If your changes to .profile are not being seen at login time, that means > you aren't using one of the above -- OR, something is overwriting your > change later. > > In your previous emails, you've mentioned a Trinity Desktop Environment. > If that's how you login (a graphical Display Manager brought in as part > of TDE), then it's no surprise that .profile is not being read. > > See <https://wiki.debian.org/Xsession> assuming your TDE + Display Manager > setup still uses a Debian X session. > > If your setup does NOT use a Debian X session, then I would revert to the > traditional configuration -- create a .xsession file, put your changes > in it (which may simply be dotting in .profile, or not, depending on > what's in .profile), and then make sure it executes the startup command > for TDE at the end. Which means you have to figure out what that startup > command IS. > > The tricky parts of the traditional configuration are figuring out how > to invoke your WM or desktop environment, and figuring out whether you > can dot in .profile, or whether you have to duplicate parts of it. The > key is that .xsession is NOT executed in a terminal environment. So, > if it tries to write any messages to stdout, you won't see them. If > it tries to call stty or any other terminal-oriented program, it will > fail. In a lot of cases, you can simply ignore these failures, but > without knowing what's in your .profile (and all the files it dots in), > it's impossible to give specific advice. > > Finally, remember that .xsession is run by /bin/sh, not by your login > shell. So, if you've got bash syntax in .profile (or anything it dots > in, such as .bashrc), then you cannot safely dot it in from .xsession. songbird