> Run a 'which java' command to see exactly what java are you running, > followed by 'java -version'. > > I suspect you did not get the SUN jdk but the GNU java. [root at blh ~]# which java /usr/bin/java [root at blh ~]# java -version java version "1.4.2" gcj (GCC) 3.4.3 20050227 (Red Hat 3.4.3-22.1) Bingo... I'm not sure how far along gcj is, but for the vast majority of Java applications you'll need one of the Sun or IBM SDKs. I don't know much about your distro, but I'd you're usually better off going to java.sun.com and downloading java 5 (a.k.a. 1.5.x) and getting one of their RPMs. As to the classpath, you can do a 'printenv CLASSPATH' to check it. If nothing shows up, google "bashrc CLASSPATH" and you should get detailed instructions.