.profile missing in Unix (bash shell)

[Arnoldjavs3]

Homework Statement

I'm playing around in UNIX and I wanted to modify my .profile file in my home directory, but It's not there. I know you type in ls -a to view the hidden files but it's simply not there. Do I just create one? I want it to just display my name every time i log in.

Homework Equations

The Attempt at a Solution

I'm new with bash, i don't know much of its scripting but I think all I have to do is write an echo statement at the end of it - after creating the file in vim or something?

#!/bin/bash

echo "blablabla"

I've tried this and it doesn't work.

 

[phyzguy]

In bash, you should have files called ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile. Depending on what you want to do, you need to edit one of these.

 

[UsableThought]

There are lots of unix sites that will tutor you through this. Shells can get fairly involved if you want a nice working environment. Although the web is fine for answers for this sort of stuff, when I got into Linux some years back, I bought a few O'Reilly books to help me; they have a https://www.amazon.com/dp/0596009658/?tag=pfamazon01-20 that was very helpful.

 

[Arnoldjavs3]

I actually found it in /etc/skell/. It sucks because I have several books and they all point to different things; It's not a very uniform platform for me :(.

I simply added in echo$(user) and it worked.

if you have a book similar to C by brian and ritchie I'm all ears - I have unix shell programming(3rd edition) and one oreilly book as a ebook.

 

[UsableThought]

I actually found it in /etc/skell/.

Never hear of that before!

Are you literally using unix, or a linux distro? If the latter, you can go to its forums & people there should be able to tell you how exactly things differ from the more standard setups..

 

[Arnoldjavs3]

UNIX and bash shell. Someone had guided me there from unix.stackexchange.

Although I'm feeling a lot more confident now, found a couple online tutorials that are great

 

[Mark44]

book similar to C by brian and ritchie I'm all ears

Often referred to as "K & R," (but not B & R) for Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.