Re: Ksh and gnome

[mcorbeil NetRevolution com]

> I use the korn shell and my .profile loads just fine at command line.
> But when I open a terminal though i am in korn .profile does load. I can .
> ~/.profile to get my profile, this is clunky.
> Where are the initialisation file for gnome? can I use korn.

Your ~/.profile file should be loaded or sourced upon login.  This is as opposed 
to .bashrc or .kshrc, which are sourced when you login and every time you open a 
terminal window.  .profile is used for both ksh and bash, by the way.

Whether you use bash, ksh, csh, tcsh, sh, or any other shell should not make any 
difference wrt GNOME, but if I'm wrong, then you should or may find information 
about this at the gnome web site.  Search through the faq there to see if there 
are any restrictions wrt which shells are supported, or not.  You might find the 
answer quickly by typing in bash for a keyword to search on, or ksh.  If ksh 
produces nothing, then try with "bash".  

If GNOME has such a restriction, then this'll probably disappear in the near 
future, because GNOME shouldn't have such restrictions, for it's a desktop.  
Also, if GNOME has such a restriction, then you might be able to simply change 
your login shell to bash, instead of ksh, and any ksh scripts to bash by simply 
modifying the #! line to use bash instead of ksh (much of ksh and bash script 
code is compatible).

If your ~/.profile file isn't sourced upon you logging in, then there's a 
problem that's unrelated to GNOME.  To test, reboot your system and don't boot 
into the X level.  When the prompt appears log in and verify your environment 
variables using the env command.  If variables are defined in your ~/.profile 
file, then you should see these with env.  If your ~/.profile file is empty or 
contains only comments, say, then it'll be sourced, but will have no effect.  

Etcetera.

If you aren't familiar with systems administration for the system you're using, 
then you'll need to learn the basics of this, before worrying about getting 
GNOME to work with ksh.  If you are familiar with the sys admin aspect, then 
make sure that your ~/.profile file is being sourced without booting into X, 
booting standalone, and once that's verified, then trouble shoot what's 
happening when you boot into X and GNOME.  

You might also find it useful to try logging in to the kde desktop, instead of 
gnome, and verifying if your ~/.profile file is sourced then.  If it's sourced 
with kde login and not gnome, then verify through the gnome web site and if you 
find nothing on this there, then submit a bug report, how ever the gnome web 
site instructs to do this.

Again, if you still have problems with ksh for gnome, then try with bash, to see  
if the same problem occurs; if it does, then perhaps the /etc/profile file isn't 
sourcing the user's ~/.profile file.

Etcetera.

Sorry about the poor ordering of the above ideas.