[Maxima] how to re-define the HOME directory?

[James Amundson]

On 06/01/2009 10:07 AM, Oliver Kullmann wrote:
> Hi,
>
> since in my research platform Maxima needs to run locally,
> without intrusion of the user space, I needed to do something
> w.r.t. the .maxima directory, and fortunately redefining the
> environment variable HOME when calling Maxima does the job!
>    
Maybe, but that's not the right way to do it. You want to set 
MAXIMA_USERDIR to point to your .maxima directory. The maxima man page 
describes the Maxima environment variables and configuration files and 
directories. Here's what it says about MAXIMA_USERDIR:

MAXIMA_USERDIR
Points to a directory for user customization files. Maxima’s default 
search paths include MAX-
IMA_USERDIR. Default value: $HOME/.maximaq

I would expect redefining HOME to have other, unintended consequences 
like...
> Alas, now I found out that gnuplot (version 4.2.4 or 4.2.5,
> but apparently this doesn't matter) doesn't work anymore:
>
> (%i1) plot2d(sin(x),[x,-5,5])$
> Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
> Xlib: No protocol specified
> gnuplot: unable to open display ':0'
> gnuplot: X11 aborted.
>    

...that.

--Jim Amundson
(who set
up all this sort of thing in the first place, and is glad to see that he 
anticipated the sort of customization you need.)