Stroller writes: > Therefore I have created a plain text > file /etc/profile.d/essential_defaults [...] > Yet when I log in, these environment variables are not set. > > The file is world-readable (mode 644), and I even tried setting the > execute bit (`chmod +xxx`).
It needs to be readable by your user, more is not needed. > If I source the file using `. /etc/profile.d/essential_defaults` then > suddenly I get the right pager, but it does not seem to be sourced at > login, as I believe is promised. What am I doing wrong or > misunderstanding, please? /etc/profile is sourced for login shells only. That happens when you log in a text console, but usually not for a graphical terminal. As a KDE user, I have set my Konsole's profiles to run '/bin/bash -l', this gives me login shells. For xterm or aterm, you would use the '-ls' option. Wonko