Hello all, Why doesn't KDE source my ~/.bash_profile ? I want to set session-wide environmental variables. This is a FAQ, and I found that the most convincing answer is that people are using different shells. I understand that. Then, what about introducing a KDE specific, per-user initial script, like ~/.kderc ? In this case, we can specify that the grammar of this script is that of the Bourne shell regardles of the user's login shell and that it is sourced at the end of the startup sequence of KDE. Alternatives aren't satisfactory. 1) Modify the system-wide KDE startup script. But, it's not trivial to take care of different login shells. And to modify system files is a nuissance when it comes to upgrade. 2) Put things into ~/.bashrc, instead of ~/.bash_profile . But, env. vars. in ~/.bashrc don't affect processes invoked from menus and launchers. 3) Don't log in with KDE but with xsession, and put your stuff in ~/.xsession, at the end of which you invoke KDE. But, it's ugly. It's a kludge. KDE should have its own mechanism for every conceivable per-user customization. Gnome has ~/.gnomerc, which is good, except that it's sourced at the beginning, not at the end, of the startup sequence. So, some of your env. vars. are overwritten or unset by the Gnome startup sequence. Regards, Ryo ___________________________________________________ . Account management: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde. Archives: http://lists.kde.org/. More info: http://www.kde.org/faq.html.