You should use 'su - root' to get a root login shell. Otherwise you will still keep your old environment, including $HOME and $USER. (The man page recommends u

You should use 'su - root' to get a root login shell. Otherwise you will still keep your old environment, including $HOME and $USER. (The man page recommends using --login over the single dash, but it also says they are equivalent. Maybe I'm too much of a moron to understand the difference, but the single dash is less typing)