.bashrc,The difference between this script and .bashrc is that .bash_profile runs only when you log in. It was originally designed so that you could separate interactive shells from those run by background processors such as cron.But it is not very useful on modern computers with the X Window System because when you open a new terminal window, only .bashrc runs. If you start up a window with the command xterm -ls, it will run .bash_profile too.