[Scottish] Hopeless newbie does Tomcat (or not, as the case may be...)

[Steve Logan]

First of all, many thanks to those of you who replied to my last cry of
help.  You are a very useful lot and I thank you.

I've been waylaid on Real Work for the last month during which I failed 
to thank you for your previous help and to stop my main project becoming 
a dot net project.  Oh well.

However I persevere with my quest to get Tomcat working on Suse.

After numerous false starts I've decided to get back to basics and start 
from nothing.  To that end I've removed the old (1.4.*) JDK and JRE via 
YaST and downloaded new (1.5) versions from java.sun.com.  I've unpacked 
the rpm files for both and am now struggling to install them

Here's what happens:

- I'm trying to install jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.rpm
- I download the RPMs to /home/slog/downloads/linux/java5
- I click on the RPM file in Konqueror
- The RHS of Konqueror changes to tell me what's in the RPM file.  I 
also get a button 'Install package with YaST'
- I click on the 'Install package with YaST' button.
- YaST starts up without any hints that it's doing anything with the 
RPM.  I just get the default 'search' window.
- I click on 'Accept' and a popup tells me that I'm missing a JRE (which 
is true but that's what I'm trying to install) that seems to be required 
by OpenOffice and the JRE it wants we to install is the old one, ie 
1.4.2-129 which I don't (I think) want.

Do I have to do something to YaST to tell it that I want to install a 
particular RPM or put the RPM in a particular directory or something?

I've also tried installing via the command line using

   rpm -il jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.rpm

which appears to work OK but when I try

    java -version

I get told that 'bash: java: command not found' and I don't have the 
correct environment variables set.  Have I got the rpm switches correct?

Conceptual question #1: Would it be fair to say that installing apps via 
YaST is better that command line RPM?  Do either (or both) set up 
EVERYTHING that is required (ie environment vars, add things to the 
path, etc)?

Conceptual question #2: Embarrassed to say I don't know this - If I want 
  to set environment vars under DOS/Windows I edit the autoexec.bat file 
or fiddle around in the 'System' Control Panel widget.  What's the Linux 
equivalent?  I've read that the /etc/profile file is the place but when 
I take a look at that the header says don't mess.  Advice?  Does 
etc/profile get read for all users?  Can I have a per user profile? 
Where would it live?

Thanks, again, for your assistance...

Steve

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Steve Logan, engineering software
  t: 01764-650085
  e: steve at bigsmoke.com
  w: www.bigsmoke.com