problems with system-config-display and crtl-alt-backspace

[Paul Allen Newell]

Ed Greshko wrote:
> Paul Allen Newell wrote:
>   
>> Suvayu Ali wrote:
>>     
>>> Hi Aaron,
>>>
>>> On Monday 28 December 2009 02:11 PM, Aaron Konstam wrote:
>>>       
>>>> On Mon, 2009-12-28 at 03:04 -0800, Suvayu Ali wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>> ~/.bash_profile gets sourced by any "well behaved" desktop environment
>>>>> when ever you login. In my experience XFCE and WindowMaker does
>>>>> this. (I
>>>>> don't use Gnome/KDE as often, so can't comment on them).
>>>>>
>>>>> ~/.bashrc gets sourced when ever you open an interactive shell,
>>>>> maybe by
>>>>> opening a terminal emulator or login in remotely.
>>>>>
>>>>> This means whenever you login remotely both ~/.bash_profile& 
>>>>> ~/.bashrc
>>>>> gets sourced. However if you open a terminal emulator like
>>>>> gnome-terminal or xterm only your ~/.bashrc gets sourced.
>>>>>           
>>>> It is my impression that.bashrc is souurced whenever any program is run
>>>> in a bash environment. I am willing to be corrected.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> By bash environment if you mean a terminal emulator then that is
>>> exactly what I meant in my previous post. However if for example you
>>> run something using a menu or shortcut on your desktop or maybe
>>> Alt-F2 then ~/.bashrc is _not_ sourced, and environment variables
>>> defined there won't be available to you. If you want something like
>>> that, you need to define it in your ~/.bash_profile.
>>>
>>> Hope this makes my point clearer. :)
>>>       
>> Naive question .... it sounds like if a user has selected bash as
>> shell-of-choice, then bash_profile is there for any operation
>> (terminal or not) that would involve the use of the shell? I might not
>> be saying this right, but I am trying to understand just how global
>> bash_profile is and, if not, why it isn't as it seems by your email
>> that for all intents and purposes it is global to a user's login process.
>>
>> Thanks for bearing with the question given that you already know I am
>> running tcsh and therefore this is a learning exercise as opposed to a
>> real occurrence in my usage of fedora.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>     
> Why not just read "man bash"?
>
>   
Because bring up the "man bash" pages and searching for "profile" gives 
me info about what happens with a shell or a non-interactive --login 
shell and doesn't give me any meta information that either answers my 
question or makes it clear that I am asking the wrong question.

http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html

One of the reasons to watch/read this forum is to get answers to 
questions that man pages don't supply. In my experience, if you want to 
know exactly how to do something with a given command/whatever, they are 
great. If you want to get an understanding of the overall picture of the 
command/whatever, they aren't very good as they assume you have already 
commit to "this is what I am using so how do I do this particular 
operation".

To ask what is the scope of ".bash_profile" outside of sourcing order in 
particular occurrences, I don't see it in the man pages.

I am more than happy to be told that I am totally incorrect in my 
interpretation of this.

Thanks (and that includes making me double-check the man pages to prove 
to myself that I am not seeing the answer I am looking for!),
Paul