Re: printing and .profile problems

[Ed Donovan <edonovan@world.std.com>]

Hi Chris - 

Is there an existing .bash_profile in that directory?  I believe Debian
by default gives you one.  If so, .profile will not be read:  

          Login shells:
            On login (subject to the -noprofile option):
                  if /etc/profile exists, source it.

                  if ~/.bash_profile exists, source it,
                    else if ~/.bash_login exists, source it,
                      else if ~/.profile exists, source it.

                                                    (from the man page)
So you could rework it one way or another to get your command sourced.
(You can also instead just put it in .bashrc, which practically always
gets read by interactive shells.  But why leave this .profile ambiguity
hanging anyway? :-)

The other possibility is less likely: that you are somehow running a
sub-shell, not a login shell.  If you were using an xterm this might be
the case.  But any login from a console prompt should be a login shell,
and read the startup files as specified above.  Specifying login
behavior, or the .bashrc solution, would work if it was a sub.  

Hth,

-- 

Ed Donovan			edonovan@world.std.com