~/.profile doesn't run after upgrading to Ubuntu 17.10

Question

After upgrading Ubuntu from 17.04 to 17.10, ~/.profile file has suddenly stopped running on login. Therefore, the script below, which is located in ~/.profile isn't run

# set PATH so it includes user's private bin directories
PATH="$HOME/bin:$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

How to make ~/.profile run again on startup? Thanks in advance!

Is it sourced if you select a gnome session (in place of the default - I think -Wayland session)? — steeldriver, Jan 27 '18 at 23:25
@steeldriver good question. Just checked: when I choose "Ubuntu" (default) it doesn't work, but when I choose "Ubuntu on Xorg" or "Unity" it does work. — AlonL, Jan 27 '18 at 23:32
Yeah - I think that's just a "feature" of the Wayland session (it doesn't invoke a login shell) - not sure if there's a way to change that — steeldriver, Jan 27 '18 at 23:33
Some suggestions here: GNOME, Wayland, and environment variables — steeldriver, Jan 27 '18 at 23:40

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 27 '18 at 23:53

The issue is that Ubuntu 17.10 uses Wayland as the default desktop session - which unlike traditional X-Windows desktops, does not invoke a user's login shell (or in fact any shell).

The recommended workaround from Initiatives/Wayland/Session Start GNOME Wiki is given as follows:

The simplest way to set environment variables for a single user under systemd (version 233 or later), is to create a .conf file in ~/.config/environment.d, containing lines of the form NAME=VAL. See the environment.d documentation for more details.

GDM also supports the /usr/share/gdm/env.d/ drop-in directory. Files dropped in there also contain lines of the form NAME=VAL. These affect all users of the system.

For additional discussion see the article GNOME, Wayland, and environment variables.

~/.profile doesn't run after upgrading to Ubuntu 17.10

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