[GRASS5] Grass5 - GISDBASE issues

[Kevin Slover]

Good morning/afternoon/evening,
    I am new to the GRASS 5 program, actually am really just starting
out from scratch.  I am having issues right now with trying to restart
GRASS 5.  I have been able to open it only once after installing, but
when closing and trying to restart, it gives me an error message.  I am
using precompiled GRASS5 on RH7.1.

when typing grass5 to start, I get:
    starting GRASS ...
    as well, a gis_set.tcl gui opens, but nothing appears.  Nothing ever
appears, so I have either ctrc-c or close the gui.

when closing the gui, I get the following error:
  /usr/local/grass5/etc/Init.sh: GISDBASE: parameter null or not set

is there something that I am not setting properly.
I read the Init.sh file, and noticed that it has something for first
time user:
 First time user - GISRC is defined in the grass script
does this mean that all paths need to be set in the first session upon
starting grass??

Thanks for the help....
p.s.  Are there any good tutorials out there.  I have explored quite a
few that are posted on the website, but wondering if there were some
"secret" ones may be hidden somewhere...
thanks....