What's the difference between files:

.bash_profile
.profile

in home user dir ?
with clear explanation.. Thanks much in advance

What distro are you using? On CentOS and Slackware, there is no file named .profile in ~/.

The .bash_profile file in CentOS checks whether a .bashrc is present. If it is present, it calls ~/.bashrc, which is the traditional place for bash customization; otherwise, the systemwide bash environment from /etc/profile. It also includes a bit of space for customizing your path.

You can use the cat command to look at the contents of the files and answer the question for yourself. Cat is a very use command to be familiar with. You might also take a look at man bash.

Afterthought:

This wouldn't be a homework question, would it?

I am actually in Msys (maybe Cygwin also has this extra file .profile)

with content in .bash_profile:

# ~/.bash_profile: executed by bash(1) for login shells


and in .profile:

# ~/.profile: executed by the command interpreter for login shells

https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/ma...tup-Files.html

Unlike .bash_profile, the .profile file was derived from the Unix Bourne shell and it is read by most of the "standard" shells except the csh, so if you're regularly changing your default shell, it might come in handy for you.

yes, see man bash, look for invocation. actually this is almost the same as post #4