Issues about >> ~/.bashrc

[ghost]

Recently, I peeped your repository of gatk_setup, and find a question. For my taste, I always use>> ~/.profile to set a new path instead of ~/.bashrc. My question is that why you choose add a new path at/.bashrc rather than ~/.profile? Is there any reason for it?

[azalea]

The difference is subtle and I think these two are equivalent in this scenario.

See here.

The reason is that I use .bashrc for other personal settings, and I prefer to maintain just one personal configuration file.

[ghost]

OK, got it. Thank you for your help and I totally solved this problem with your answer and the reference I find below:

• link1
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  These told me when I startup ubuntu desktop, It will auto-read ~/.profile and setup all the paths you added before and just execute it once, but the stuff you put in the ~/.bashrc. Every time you prompt up a new terminal, it will be executed. At a extreme case, if you put too much new paths in /.bashrc and every time you open a new terminal, it will update these new paths again and again. Maybe that re-loading processes could effect the speed when you are runing some big data simultaneously. However, if you put all the stuff in ~/.profile, it will finish adding all the new path once when you just login ubuntu desktop.

[azalea]

You are totally right. But I can hardly imagine a situation where one need to open multiple non-login shells.

[ghost]

For me, I always run a big data on my local computer like Tophat, which will often spend me at least 24 hr. So during this time, I still need to do other things and still use a non-login terminal to do that. Additionally, I am an undergraduate and no one could provide me a good HPC resources. So sometimes I need to consider my actual working efficiency. That's the reason.

[azalea]

You can run a process in background. You can also use screen.