terminal disappears

[Homer Welch <hjwxxx comcast net>]

> Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2007 08:51:22 -0500
> From: "Lowell Thomas" <lowell coasttocoastresearch com>
> Subject: terminal disappears
> To: <gnome-list gnome org>
> Message-ID:
> 	<LLEELBHDEJDNOMCGFBKLKEHOCBAA lowell coasttocoastresearch com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm an experienced C/C++ developer with a little UNIX experience years ago,
> but a complete newbie to Linux and GNOME. I just installed Debian 4.0r1 with
> gnome 2.14.3 and I'm having trouble with the terminal. Problem one, is that
> it does not seem to run the .bash_profile script at start up. Problem two,
> is that I shot myself in the foot experimenting with fixing it. I modified
> some parameters in the terminal profile (I don't remember which, but I
> modified some check boxes) and now it just flashes on and immediately exits
> before I can undo my changes. I can get a root terminal, but not my user
> terminal. Any help would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Lowell Thomas

I think that problem 1 is a shell problem.  When gnome-terminal begins, it starts an interactive shell.  An interactive shell reads ~/.bashrc as its profile.  Adding a line in ~/.bashrc:
 
  source ~/.bash_profile

should execute the commands in .bash_profile.  See the man page for bash and seek
INVOCATION for an explanation.

For problem 2, see if you can find a configuration file for gnome-terminal in the ~/.gnome directory tree.  If there is one, either fix it or rename it something else.  It should be recreated when you start gnome-terminal.  If it doesn't fix the problem, you can rename it back to its original name.

good luck