Just to add some clarification. xTerm still appears to work as far as I have seen. Commands such as ls, cd etc work. Since I know I only have one path statement in .profile it does support the comment that .profile is ignored in xTerm (which I presume runs busybox).

BUT I do get an error when I start xTerm which comes from the path statement which suggests xTerm IS reading .profile!

I think, in any case, I do need to correct .profile and I do need to add my folder called Scripts to the path to enable me to run commands from the osso-statusbar.

The great post earlier in this thread explains how to create and add to .profile and I think this will be enough to get me back to where I was. I just need to know WHAT was in .profile before I overwrote it.

BTW, I am not using SSH. I was doing everything on the N810 in xTerm.
Also I don't appear to need to gain root to edit, create or (probably) delete .profile
mc sound helpful if it allows editing on the tablet. I presume I could find it in App Manager as well as pull it from the command line?

Thanks for all the input, I din't mean to start an argument!!!