By default, gnome-terminal does not spawn a login shell. To use a login shell for all gnome-terminal windows for a particular user in gnome-terminal, you can use gnome-terminal preferences dialog:

" Edit " -> " Current Profile " -> " Title and Command " and select " Run command as a login shell "

Alternatively, using the command line tool "gconftool-2" will achieve the same result:

# gconftool-2 --type boolean --set /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/login_shell true

To set this as a default option for all users, use gconftool-2 to set the default value of the key "login_shell" to "true" in the GConf database. As root, run the following command:

# gconftool-2 --direct --config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults --type boolean --set /apps/gnome-terminal/profiles/Default/login_shell true

Users will still be able to change that default value on a per user basis using the preference dialog in gnome-terminal.