Hi,
I'm running version 7.1 of RedHat Linux. I can login to my system as root
When I do I'm place in the root home directory of /root. Whenever I login a profile file is read named .bash_profile that set up my environment including a path statement just like in the old dos days with the autoexec.bat. I can see the profile file by entering dir -a at the command prompt.
To add postgresql directory to the already set default path I made an entry as follows to my .bash_profile file using my editor of choice
path=/var/lib/prsql/bin:$PATH
You probably already have the following command in you profile file but it set the path up in memory for root:
export USERNAME BASH_ENV PATH
After this has been entered, I can view my environment by entering the following at the command prompt:
env
I must be careful about case when entering commands because unix/linux is case sensitive.
You could follow the example above and add a path to where your java lives so the java directory would be searched whenever you issue a command. The java directory would alway be available to you as soon as you login.