[tex-live] A Simple Recommendation

[Karl Berry]

    It is really .bash_profile in CentOS and Fedora, 

Not at all. It depends entirely on the user's login shell. It has
nothing to do with the distro.

.bash_profile is read only by bash.
.profile is read by bash, but also by the original Bourne shell,
and probably others. (Logically, all Bourne-compatible shells should
read it, but since when does logic mean anything ...)

There are similar considerations for .bashrc, which is bash-specific.
(There is no equivalent "generic" file.)

As already mentioned, this is not a TeX Live topic ... --karl