9. Configuring

Your sysadm has already provided you with a number of configuration files like .xinitrc, .bash_profile, .inputrc, and many others. The ones you may want to edit are:

• .bash_profile or .profile: read by the shell at login time. It's like LOGIN.COM;
• .bash_logout: read by the shell at logout. It's like LOGOUT.COM;
• .bashrc: read by non--login shells.
• .inputrc: this file customises the key bindings and the behaviour of the shell.

To give you an example, I'll include my .bash_profile (abridged):

# $HOME/.bash_profile

# don't redefine the path if not necessary
echo $PATH | grep $LOGNAME > /dev/null
if [ $? != 0 ]
then
  export PATH="$PATH:/home/$LOGNAME/bin"  # add my dir to the PATH
fi

export PS1='LOGNAME:\w\$ '
export PS2='Continued...>'

# aliases

alias bin="cd ~/bin" ; alias cp="cp -i" ; alias d="dir"
alias del="delete" ; alias dir="/bin/ls $LS_OPTIONS --format=vertical"
alias ed="jed" ; alias mv='mv -i'
alias u="cd .." ; alias undel="undelete"

# A few useful functions

inst() # Install a .tar.gz archive in current directory.
{
  gzip -dc $1 | tar xvf -
}
cz() # List the contents of a .zip archive.
{
  unzip -l $*
}
ctgz() # List the contents of a .tar.gz archive.
{
  for file in $* ; do
    gzip -dc ${file} | tar tf -
  done
}
tgz() # Create a .tgz archive a la zip.
{
  name=$1 ; tar -cvf $1 ; shift
  tar -rf ${name} $* ; gzip -S .tgz ${name}
}

And this is my .inputrc:

# $HOME/.inputrc
# Last modified: 16 January 1997.
#
# This file is read by bash and defines key bindings to be used by the shell;
# what follows fixes the keys END, HOME, and DELETE, plus accented letters.
# For more information, man readline.

"\e[1~": beginning-of-line
"\e[3~": delete-char
"\e[4~": end-of-line

set bell-style visible
set meta-flag On
set convert-meta Off
set output-meta On
set horizontal-scroll-mode On
set show-all-if-ambiguous On

# (F1 .. F5) are "\e[[A" ... "\e[[E"

"\e[[A": "info "