This is on a Solaris 9 box, but I feel like a noob, so I am posting here. When I echo $PATH I get a lot of duplicate paths and extra stuff I don't need. What I want is just what I set up in my home dir under .profile

My login shell=/bin/bash

I checked the following and there are no path statements id;
/etc/profile
/etc/default/login
$HOME/local.login
$HOME/local.cshrc
$HOME/local.profile
$HOME/.dtprofile

I do not have a $HOME/bash_profile

I am using gnome 2.0 as desktop

Where are these extra path statements coming from?

When you log into X, your shell isn't started. So your .profile is not consulted at all at that point. Then when you start a terminal in Gnome, that doesn't count as a login shell either, so it might not be reading your .profile then either.

The whole X11 / gdm / Gnome login business is complex stuff so there's a lot of different places you could plug into (or mess up :-). You could put something in Gnome's Sessions preference to load up your profile when your session starts. (Preferences -> Sessions -> find out where they moved this functionality while you were not looking -- in my Gnome 2.20.1 you can add your own script in the Startup Programs tab.)