one of the main places for putting your personalized tweaks is the ~/.profile When a new interactive shell is started, /etc/profile , followed by /etc/bash.bashrc (if bash shell), ~/.profile , and finally ~/.bashrc are executed in that order. It is best to put generic settings in ~/.profile and then bash-specific settings in ~/.bashrc SOLARIS: $HOME/.profile - primary user initialization files read at login The login shell executes the .profile file when you log in. You can customize environment variables and terminal settings in the .profile file to modify your working environment ~/.kshrc file contains shell variables and aliases - it is ENV var /bin/sh - shell path name /bin/ksh - shell path name /etc/.login file is a separate. This file sets up tasks that the Korn shell executes for every user who logs in If you want the changes to take effect immediately, you can source the .cshrc file and the .login file by using the source command