well i got the answer but i have a much more interesting problem now. i have set up my bash shell exactly the way i want it, and it all works flawlessly. however now, when i change my SHELL variable back to tcsh, i get this ...
.: Command not found.
[bc170226:~] testuser%
although this problem is purely aesthetic, it bugs me and i want to know what's causing it.
however when i switch to tcsh from bash it all works fine, without the error. i don't know the difference between the procedure tcsh goes through at terminal start vs. the one it goes through at invoke from an open terminal.
any help would be great.
thanks.