.bash_profile not run when using graphical login

[Martin Maney]

On Wed, Oct 06, 2004 at 12:26:13AM +0100, Colin Watson wrote:
> That was deliberate, actually, since otherwise there's no way to recover
> from e.g. fsck on your root filesystem failing. We were happy to do this

Really?  That's odd, because I have, from time to time, had fsck fail,
and it wasn't impossible to recover as you suggest it must be.  It's
been a while so I don't really recall the details, but I know I didn't
have to resort to Knoppix ('cause it didn't exist back then).  Well,
except for the time the drive was dying in stages, for which I wish
Knoppix had been around...  :-)

The more I think about this, the more spurious it sounds.  The
assumption is that you might not be able to login because some file -
passwd, say - is corrupted.  But then why assume that fsck is sound? 
init's critical parts?  It seems like you're saving us from one or two
failures out of dozens of similar ones that are equally likely.  Am I
missing something?

Also, I do use the other layers... but, as you say, with physical
access a competent attacker will get past them all.  I'm just looking
to deter a 95th percentile attacker, not a 99th: the bored guy
fidgeting idly with the computer just becasue it's on the desk where he
found a phone to borrow.  For him, the boot command line is a mystery
and I'm not worried; picking an entry from a menu to see what it does
is more his speed.  :-/

Oh, and the best defense (if you assume no opening of the case), the
BIOS boot password, may only stop cold boots.  It depends on the BIOS
that happened to come with the rest of the kit.

-- 
Truth in advertising is like leaven, which a woman hid in three
measures of meal.  It provides a suitable quantity of gas, with
which to blow out a mass of crude misrepresentations into a form
that the public can swallow.  - Dorothy Sayers, _Murder Must Advertise_