Problem solved and not a bug with gnome-terminal. My ~/.bash_profile had: [ -r .bashrc ] && source .bashrc
But, if I've moved out of my $HOME in the first tab, the above would fail to source .bashrc. I resolved the issue by changing to: [ -r ~/.bashrc ] && source ~/.bashrc -- New tabs do not run command as a login shell https://launchpad.net/bugs/50485 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
