fixing cpan by resetting it

I believe cpan maintains its files in the directory of the user that ran it. So if it was root then they'd be in /root/.cpan. You can just blow this directory away completely.

Alternatively you can re-run the "wizard" that asks you all those CPAN questions using this command:

$ cpan o conf init

Removing /root/.cpan certainly helps, but if you want to go back to the first launch message, you need to remove CPAN/Config.pm. To find out where it is, try:

perldoc -l CPAN

i.e.:

ls -l `dirname $(perldoc -l CPAN)`/CPAN/Config.pm