How to load user preference at user login

At Linux/Unix, user can set preference value(e.g. alias, folder and file default color). These values are loaded from a startup file every time when a user logs in or by excecuting the "source {filename}" command.

Startup file are different from one shell to and other. To confirm what the current shell is, simply do the command "echo $shell", and it will be shown on the screen. The startup file usually stored at the default root directory - usually this is the first location where a user hits after the login.

There are always some overly cautious administrator would assign the user to another directory other than the default root directory by executing a cd command at the startup file for the sake of safety. In this case, one must first guess what the the default root directory is by the username and have a search in the /usr/ directory.

Startup file are usually invisible(filenames with "." at the front) to the user, to make it visible, do "ls -a" and edit it with your default editor.

Startup file name by Shells:

.login      --      csh shell

.tcshrc    --     tcsh shell

A sample Startup script:

#set environment

#alias

alias lla 'ls -lrta'
alias ll 'ls -lrt'
alias ls 'ls -x --color'
alias pwd 'echo $cwd' # This is faster than executing the pwd command
alias rm '/bin/rm -i'
alias checkdate 'ls \\!^ | awk -F. {print $1 $7} | sort -u'

setenv LS_COLORS 'no=00:fi=00:di=01;34:ln=01;36:pi=40;33:so=01;35:bd=40;33;01:cd=40;33;01:or=01;05;37;41:mi=01;05;37;41:ex=01;32:*.cmd=01;32:*.exe=01;32:*.com=01;32:*.btm=01;32:*.bat=01;32:*.sh=01;32:*.csh=01;32:*.tar=01;31:*.tgz=01;31:*.arj=01;31:*.taz=01;31:*.lzh=01;31:*.zip=01;31:*.z=01;31:*.Z=01;31:*.gz=01;31:*.bz2=01;31:*.bz=01;31:*.tz=01;31:*.rpm=01;31:*.cpio=01;31:*.jpg=01;35:*.gif=01;35:*.bmp=01;35:*.xbm=01;35:*.xpm=01;35:*.png=01;35:*.tif=01;35:'