.profile vs. .bashrc

From "man bash"

Quote:

When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable.

Quote:

When an interactive shell that is not a login shell is started, bash reads and executes commands from ~/.bashrc, if that file exists.

In other words, /etc/profile is run when a user logs in. ~/.bashrc is run for other shells (Ie opening an xterm)

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-general-1/etc-profile-v-s-etc-bashrc-273992/