what could be the reason and how can i fix it ? the .profile is in /root and i log in as root. it runs on bash.

[root@xyz ~]# ls -la
total 32
drwxr-x--- 3 root root 4096 Feb 11 16:23 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 Feb 12 11:05 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24 Feb 22 2008 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 327 Feb 22 2008 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 184 Dec 11 2007 .bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11 Feb 11 14:38 .exrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 185 Feb 11 16:18 .profile
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Feb 11 13:00 .ssh

Some distributions use .profile and some use .bashrc. I see that you have both. Maybe fedora is using .bashrc to configure bash at login. Also I would check out .bash_profile

---------------------
Steve Stites

if you are using bash then the login script bash looks for is .bash_profile.
if you are using sh, csh, tcsh, ... i think they look for .profile.
to know what shell you are using.
_____________

i recommend you dont log in as root so you dont blitz your system.

i wonder why it was necessary to deviate from the decades-long traditional name .profile ? smells microsoft-ish ...

What names the startup files have and in what order they are tried is something I have to look up every time I need it. Besides depending on the flavor of shell (Bash, Korn, Bourne, C etc) it can also depend on what you use the shell for. For example is this instance of the shell going to be your login shell? An interactive shell that is NOT the login shell? Just a shell script?

These different situations need (possibly) different things initialized. For example, if you just want to run a shell script as though it were any old unix command, defining functions and aliases is probably overkill. But if you are logging on (or off) you may want to do special things, perhaps for administrative reasons.

Also, these scripts can exist not only in your home directory, but also system-wide in /etc. I found it helpful to put lines like "echo 'this is /etc/bash_profile'" in each file so I know what ones are executed in which order under what circumstances.

Also, the various files can explicitly call ("source") each other, typically from inside an "if" statement that checks whether that file exists.

Nope. (Reasons below).

Yes. Hence, to the original poster I say: read the man page for the shell you are using.

The initialization files do not depend on the distro, but in the shell you use and how you use it (login vs. non login, interactive or not, special parameters passed, etc.), hence. For bash, you should be looking at ~/.bashrc for interactive but non-login shell. If you really mean an interactive login shell then it will first source /etc/profile if it exists, and after that it will source one and only one of ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, only the first one will be used, even if it's empty, so, if ~/.bash_profile is there, ~/.profile will never be read by bash.

That and more is in the bash man page, so read it, specially the section titled "INVOCATION". Other shells will follow different rules, so if you don't use bash, read the man page for your shell.