Why doesn't .bashrc run automatically? I put some alias commands in my .bashrc file, so that they might be loaded everytime I open a new Terminal window. Yet this doesn't happen.
I have to select run script: in the Terminal&gt;Preferences&gt;&quot;MyDefaultTheme&quot;&gt;Shell prefpane and add:
source .bashrc &amp;&amp; clear for it to work...
This seems odd since many tutorials only say you just have to add to the .bashrc file and all is good.
Note that I don't run in bash when using the terminal, I like the other (default) one (don't know what it is) better, because it show me where I am all the time eg:
&gt;&gt;d54c6b47b:~ romeo$

in stead of:
&gt;&gt;bash$

In bash all is loaded as should be.
So my question is, why didn't my .bashrc file load automatically and did I have to add the option to call it everytime?
Also some tutorial told me to do something like:
$alias la=’ls -la’ &gt;&gt; ~/.bashrc

which should write the alias to my .bashrc, this doesn't work either...
Note that I'm a UNIX novice, so be gentle.
Been there, done that. What I came aware of, OS X doesn't read .bashrc file on bash start. Instead, it reads the following files (in the following order):


/etc/profile
~/.bash_profile
~/.bash_login   
~/.profile


See also Chris Johnsen's informative and useful comment:


  By default, Terminal starts the shell via /usr/bin/login, which makes the shell a login shell. On every platform (not just Mac OS X) bash does not use .bashrc for login shells (only /etc/profile and the first of .bash_profile, .bash_login, .profile that exists and is readable). This is why "put source ~/.bashrc in your .bash_profile" is standard advice


I usually just put the things that I'd normally put in ~/.bashrc to ~/.profile — has worked so far like a charm.