[Solved] Missing .bashrc file from /etc/skel/

[RobertLM78]

I'm still a complete noob when it comes to bash . Anyway, I'm trying to establish some aliases for use in the terminal, and created a .bash_aliases file in my home folder, but I think that the aliases aren't working since the .bashrc is non-existant in the /etc/skel/ folder. Is this a bug in Mint, by design, or simply something that is left for the user to create (the missing .bashrc file, that is) ?
Thanks for reading!

[xenopeek]

There is no default .bashrc. So you won't find a .bashrc in /etc/skel (where the default preferences files are kept, to be copied to a new user's home folder when you create said user). You can create a .bashrc in your home folder, and as you can see in your .profile file it will be loaded from there upon login. If you make changes to the .bashrc file or the .bash_aliases, you will have to load those files manually (with the dot command, so ". .bashrc") to load them in your terminal session or just logout and login.

If you want to create the .bashrc, put the following in it at least:

Code: Select all

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
. ~/.bash_aliases
fi

You can of course also put the alias commands directly in your .bashrc file, as the above does nothing else but load the .bash_aliases file and continue loading bash settings from there (not limited to aliases). Perhaps also this post will help: http://stefaanlippens.net/bashrc_and_others. Sheds some lights on what file does what.

[RobertLM78]

Awesome! Thank you Vincent, you've given me some food for thought, and now I know why there wasn't a .bashrc file as well . Looks like I have some reading to do, thanks for the link, too !