 <p>edit or create a .profile in your home directory and add:</p> <pre><code>export PATH=/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH </code></pre> <p>Open a new terminal window for the changes to take effect.</p> <p>In general you shouldn't use root. You can change the username in MySQL 5.02 or higher:</p> <pre><code>mysql&gt; RENAME USER root TO new_user; </code></pre> <p>To delete a user:</p> <pre><code>mysql&gt; DROP USER user; </code></pre>