Hardy Alpha-4 synaptic error

[Richard Mancusi]

After a clean install (i386 desktop) I receive an error when
attempting either:

1. System/Administration/Update Manager
2. System/Administration/Synaptic Package Manager

An error occured
The following details are provided:
E:ERROR: could not create configuration directory
/home/root/.synaptic - mkdir (2 No such file or directory)

I do have a directory /root/.synaptic
and obviously there is no such thing as /home/root
where it appears to be looking.

-rich