n00b to Linux here & it's starting to piss me off. I've set up my first linux machine using Slackware 10.1 and I'm trying to create some aliases so that I don't always have to type out commands. I'm aware of the tab autocomplete feature but would like to rename some of the more inane commands. Doing some research I found I have to edit the .bashrc file, but I couldn't find it. I was told I can just create it so I did so as well as making a .bash_profile (I did find a .bash_history in the root folder so that's where I placed the two created files). Still nothing. I got to the point where I get a "-bash: source~/.bashrc: No such filer or directory" error upon first log in, but that's as far as I've gotten. What am I doing wrong.

Also I would like to reduce the amount of time spent waiting for Linux to boot up. The timeout is set to two minutes & I can't seem to change that either. I thought it was in the lilo.conf, but editing that did nothing. Any help there would also be appreciated.

I've been able to set system wide aliases by editing the profile file in /etc and just adding the aliases to the end of that file.

Hope this helps.

You're missing a space:

source ~/.bashrc

bash reads /etc/profile upon login and then .bashrc for the subsequent (i.e. non-login shells). If you want the .bashrc to get read on login also (which in this case is what you want), add the above line to the end of /etc/profile. You don't need .bash_profile file under your home directory. For more information see the manpage of bash (man bash).

This is done in /etc/lilo.conf. There is variable called TIMEOUT. You can reduce the value of this variable to shorten the waitingtime (50 would wait 5 seconds). After editing lilo.conf you will need to run lilo (be root and enter command 'lilo' on the commandline).

--edit--

You can also add aliases to /etc/profile, but then they won't work in xterms and such...

Thanks for the help, finally got it working. On to the next project.

i think there is no bashrc in slack instead we use /etc/profile

But system does read ~/.bash_profile so it's usual to put the command to source ~/.bashrc there.

If you only want .bashrc for aliases you could just make an ~/.aliases file instead and put the command

source .aliases ( or '. .aliases' ) in your ~/.bash_profile ( . = source)

Alternatively you can symlink .bash_profile to .bashrc.

if exists, Slack uses them, ie ~/.bashrc and ~/bash_profile

Here's enclosed next, my (I'm al, user al) ~/.bashrc and ~/bash_profile


al@p3srv:~$ cat .bashrc
# 3-10-2005 user al bash settings

# System wide aliases and functions /etc/bashrc (/etc/profile.d).
# Personal startup programs should go into ~/.bash_profile.
# Personal aliases and functions and environment
# variables should go into ~/.bashrc

# next 2 lines - if file exist then source the file
[ -f /home/al/.term_aliases ] && . /home/al/.term_aliases
[ -f /etc/profile ] && . /etc/profile

export PATH=$PATH:/home/al/bin
biff n
alias cdr='sudo /home/al/bin/cdrecordeasy'
alias cmx='chmod u+x'
alias cups='sudo /usr/local/bin/cups.sh'
alias diskck='du -s -k -c * | sort -rn'
alias ethrl='sudo /usr/bin/ethereal'
alias firew='sudo /usr/local/bin/firehol'
alias hi='history'
# <snipped more aliases and a function>



al@p3srv:~$ cat .bash_profile
# 3-10-2005 user al bash settings

# System wide aliases and functions /etc/bashrc (/etc/profile.d).
# Personal startup programs should go into ~/.bash_profile.
# Personal aliases and functions and environment
# variables should go into ~/.bashrc

# next 2 lines - if file exists then source the file
[ -f /etc/profile ] && . /etc/profile

[ -f ~/.bashrc ] && . ~/.bashrc
# end


--
Alan.

if exists, Slack uses them, ie ~/.bashrc and ~/bash_profile

that should be ~/.bash_profile

(with a .)

there is no ~/bash_profile

(without a .)

--
Alan.

thank you friends, for that info

but i am confused
1.if slack check for .profile file why we are creating a new one .bashrc
2.if so which one if preferred, ie if both .bashrc and .profile is present which one bash will choose?

~/.bash_profile is used by the login shells. (shells you have to type the user and password)
~/.bashrc is used by non login shells. like xterm