My man pages say that bash looks for a file ~/.bash_profile to obtain user-specific variables and settings. Do you have this file?
My own workstation (HP-UX 10.20, with CDE desktop) offers a special trap for its users: There is a special startup file for the desktop, .dtprofile, and there is by default an instruction not to read the other profile files. I do not know if this applies to Linux/KDE, however. Sincerely yours, Ulrich Deiters
