As a system administrator, you are in charge of /etc/profile. Since it is sourced by everyone when they first log in, it is important to keep it in working order. It is also a powerful tool in making things work correctly for new users as soon as they log into their new account.

However, there are some settings that you may want new users to have as defaults, but also allow them to change easily. This is where the /etc/skel directory comes in. When you use the useradd command to create a new user account, it copies all the files from /etc/skel into the user's new home directory. That means you can put helpful .bash_profile and .bashrc files in /etc/skel to get new users off to a good start.