I believe the following links explain it pretty well: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/38175/difference-between-login-shell-and-non-login-shell http://u

I believe the following links explain it pretty well: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/38175/difference-between-login-shell-and-non-login-shell http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/38175/difference-bet... http://serverfault.com/questions/8882/what-is-the-difference-between-a-login-and-an-interactive-bash-shell http://serverfault.com/questions/8882/what-is-the-difference...