[Discuss] What the use of .bashrc

[chris at tylers.info (Chris Tyler)]

On Tue, 2012-10-30 at 07:50 -0400, Glenn Hoffman wrote:
> I'm teaching an Introduction to Linux/Unix class at UMass/Boston. I've
> just told the class about the different type of shells (login,
> interactive non-login in, non-interactive) and the startup files for
> each. I've never been able to give a class a good reason for the
> existence of .bashrc, since I have never used it myself. What's the
> reason for a separate startup file for a non-login interactive shell?
> 
> Glenn

.bashrc is useful for non-inheritable configuration.

Environment variables are inheritable so they're usually placed
in .bash_profile; but aliases are not inheritable, so they must be
in .bashrc if you want them to be available in each shell you start.

-Chris