Sim. Você tem a resposta em man su
:
SYNOPSIS
su [options...] [-] [user [args...]]
DESCRIPTION
su allows to run commands with substitute user and group ID.
When called without arguments su defaults to running an interactive shell as root.
Observe que o método recomendado para isso é sudo su -
, pois ele inicia o shell raiz com um ambiente de shell de login:
-, -l, --login
Starts the shell as login shell with an environment similar to a real login:
o clears all environment variables except for TERM
o initializes the environment variables HOME, SHELL, USER, LOGNAME, PATH
o changes to the target user's home directory
o sets argv[0] of the shell to '-' in order to make the shell a login shell
ou execute diretamente sudo -i
conforme explicado nesta resposta .