go-pear doesn't like env vars

I'm new to PEAR and hoping that reporting my experience here may help suggest improvements to the installer. I just spent an hour figuring out why PEAR wouldn't install into my home directory on my ISP's host (LAMP-based). After trying several routes, in the end I figured out that in specifying the install directories, one cannot supply a base path ("prefix") that contains an environment variable or otherwise needs expansion. "~/" doesn't work, nor does $HOME. If you use the latter, the installer may create a directory called $HOME, creating the danger of an unwitting user trying to rm $HOME. (ouch!) I repeatedly tried paths containing ~ and $HOME because the default paths that are suggested use "$prefix", giving the misleading impression that env vars are OK to use. I didn't notice any mention of this in the FAQ or other install docs. Cheers, /Maarten.