Slackware :: Use Uxrvt For Rxvt Instead?

because rxvt doesn't support Unicode (UTF-8 in my case), I'd like to use urxvt (rxvt-unicode) instead. I installed it using the SlackBuild script from SlackBuilds.org. As it is not needed for all users, on the one hand, and because I would like to avoid assumptions about which shell the user prefers, I thought I'd put this into a ~/.profile:

[code]...

Unfortunately, the alias command is just ignored, although ~/.profile is read. I know this, because there are some variables defined and exported in this file, too, and they are evaluated. Now I wonder: Why doesn't have the alias any effect? In fact, after I do. Because /usr/local precedes /usr/bin in $PATH, and because the evaluation of the search PATH stops on the first hit, this works: Whenever I issue rxvt on the command line, urxvt is started. There's even a little advantage compared to the alias approach: The window title is "rxvt", although uxrvt is, what's actually being executed. Although this is all I need for the moment, I'd like to learn, what's wrong with my first attempt using alias.