how do I set 'home' for root

[Bogdan Rotariu]

Claude Jones wrote:
> It's a long story, but I have pretty crippled system right now, including a 
> messed up root user. 
> When I su in a Bash terminal, instead of getting my usual prompt I get 
> something quite different, and if I try to run a command, it aborts with an 
> error like this:
> 
> cj at viewridgeproductions2 misc]$ su
> Password:
> sh-3.00# kcontrol
> Aborting. $HOME is not set.
> sh-3.00#
> 
> So root is lost - can someone help me tell it how to 'phone home'? I was 
> wondering why I was getting the strange 'sh-3.00#' prompt in the third line 
> where I used to get 'root at viewridgeproductions2 ]$'  I think lines 4 and 5 
> are my clue, but I don't how to fix this, or for that matter, how it got into 
> this state. 

try doing the su - user
with the - so it can run .bash_profile and other shell related config files.
if that doesnt work to try to export HOME=~
or export HOME=/home/username


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