Ordem dos arquivos de configuração do Linux

When you first login to Linux, /etc/profile is read and evaluated, after which the following files are searched (if they exist) in the listed order:

1. ~/.bash_profile
2. ~/.bash_login
3. ~/.profile

The Linux login shell evaluates whatever startup file that it comes across first and ignores the rest. This means that if it finds ~/.bash_profile, it ignores ~/.bash_login and ~/.profile. Different distributions may use different startup files.

However, every time you create a new shell, or terminal window, etc., you do not perform a full system login; only the ~/.bashrc file is read and evaluated. Although this file is not read and evaluated along with the login shell, most distributions and/or users include the ~/.bashrc file from within one of the three user-owned startup files. In the Ubuntu, openSuse, and CentOS distros, the user must make appropriate changes in the ~/.bash_profile file to include the ~/.bashrc file.

The .bash_profile will have certain extra lines, which in turn will collect the required customization parameters from .bashrc.