tlug: bash startup scripts

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

I have long been dissatisfied with the shell startup scripts provided
by the major distributions.  Bash has a variety of them but basically
you've got "/etc/profile" and "~/.bash_profile" for login shells (the
latter normally sources "~/.bashrc" according to `info bash'),
".bashrc" for non-login interactive shells, and $BASH_ENV for
non-interactive shells.

POSIX shells (ie bash when invoked as "sh") use "/etc/profile" and
"~/.profile" for login shells, $ENV for interactive shells, and
nothing for non-interactive shells.

Potentially this seems to be a very flexible setup.  Why doesn't it
work right?  (That's rhetorical.)  Specifically, I would like to
distinguish between a single "login" xterm that functions sort of as a
user console, getting messages and stuff, and "work" xterms that are
not login shells.  But things never work out quite right.  I will
start from scratch if necessary, but does anybody have a heavily
customized shell startup setup[1] or a pointer to a distribution whose
shell startup files are markedly better than the others to recommend?
(The real question.)


Footnotes: 
[1]   I mean putting functionality in specific files for specific
reasons you can explain, or moving it back and forth between the files
until bash usually DTRT.  I don't mean adding lots of aliases or
changing the prompts, etc.  C-shell and K-shell advocates need not
reply.

-- 
University of Tsukuba                Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences       Tel/fax: +81 (298) 53-5091
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