[Sussex] vvv confused with java - jre, sdk and jvm

[John D.]

Hi list,

After reading an excellent review in this months LXF, I've been trying 
to install "Openlaszlo" (for making Flash GUI's and stuff).

Problem is, it "needs" java. Ok, so as far as I can tell, I've got it 
installed.

The Openlaszlo install instructions tell me to check that I've "set 
JAVA_HOME" by doing this

john at johnspc:~> echo $JAVA_HOME
/usr/lib/jvm/java
john at johnspc:~>

I understand that I have to have the java SDK installed, which I've done 
using YaST (in my SuSE 9.3 install). I've tried both 1.4.2-something or 
other and 1.5.0-whatever.

Having checked round, I seem to have an absolute myriad of java stuff 
installed i.e. I seem to be able to see directories for 1.4.0, 1.4.1, 
1.4.2 and 1.5.0 (I know that I've probably done the last two, but where 
the first two come from is anyones guess). When I've tried to install it 
(the java SDK) it doesn't actually identify itself as the JRE or SDK, 
just sun-java and sun-java-dev (plus YaST shows some other sun-java 
stuff like sun-java-alsa and things like that, and yes I installed the 
bits that seem to be pertinent to my system).

This is the kind of reply I'm getting when I look for "it".

john at johnspc:~> whereis java SDK
java: /usr/bin/java /etc/java /usr/lib/java /usr/share/java 
/usr/share/man/man1/java.1.gz
SDK:
john at johnspc:~>

Plus I'm getting even more confused as I don't seem to be able to do 
"locate somethingorother" as I just get the "locate: command not found" 
as either user or root.

Could someone advise what I need to do to get this sorted please i.e. 
mainly to "set JAVA_HOME", but also why I can't just "locate" things

regards

John D.