UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I am a beginer at Unix, and I need some help, i've created a menu which works ok, but i need the menu to be appear as soon as i log in, this would make it more user friendly and quicker to access. Dunno if it is possible but, if u can help please post a reply. Thanx and Merry Christmas to every1.

You didn't mention your environment...

AIX, Linux, HPUX, etc.
ksh, bash, csh, etc.

...so I going to assume you have written a menu shell
script and when you login, you have a ".profile" file in
your home directory. Assuming this, you can simply
call the menu shell script as the very last line in your
.profile file...

$HOME/mymenu

...assuming your shell script is located in your home directory.

Yea, i created my script in the ksh environment. I do have a ".profile" file.

Thanx for ur reply, you know were u said put "$HOME/mymenu", do u mean type "$HOME/" and then the name of the file which my menu is in? and another question do i need to put the dollar sign at the start?

rwb1959, i tried what u said but it didnt work, im probably doin somthing wrong, but i tried it a few times now and it still aint workin. Ill give u a bit more detail:

Im telneting into a university account.
Im workin in ksh
Im using vi editor

Don't know if this helps but, its like this everyone has their own id e.g. /home/then their code goes here
for example mine is /home/bf01/bf01derk
other peoples are different e.g. /home/bf01/bf01geri

do i need to put the whole thing in
i.e $home/bf01/bf01derk/then file name ??????

Plz help

"$HOME" (without the quotes) should expand
to your home directory. At the login prompt, you
can type...

echo $HOME

...note the upper case letters. This command should give you...

/home/bf01/bf01derk

...if it does not, let me know what it does expand to. The
dollar sign is always needed when referencing an environment
variable.

In the case of $HOME/mymenu the "mymenu" would be
substituted with your actual script name. Also, I assume
the file permissions on that script are with execution bit set.
Using ls -l you should see somthing like...

-rwxr-xr-x 1 ..... mymenu

...if not, in the directory in which this script is located, do...

chmod 755 mymenu

Also, I'm assuming you can execute your menu script from
the command line by simply typing it's name.

If you're still having problems, it may help to see your ".profile"
file and the actual script.

OOPS! One clarification...

When I said...

"At the login prompt..."

...I should have said...

"At the command line prompt..."

Sorry about that... no coffee yet.

Im really sorry about this......but it still aint working, i did:

echo $HOME

...note the upper case letters. This command should give you...

/home/bf01/bf01derk

thats worked fine.


I changed the permissions, and typed $HOME/menu as my the last line in my .profile, but it didnt work. I disconected then reconected but still no menu at start.


Probably somthing wrong with my .profile, coz i was messin about with it the other day:


MAIL=/var/mail/${LOGNAME:?}
PS1='$PWD $'
EDITOR=/usr/ksh/vi
SHELL=/bin/ksh
ENV=$home/.kshrc
PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin
export MAIL PS1 EDITOR SHELL ENV PATH
/bin/ksh

"then i usually put '$HOME/menu' here

Dont if u can see anything wrong