Hi, I'm totally new to Linux, and I want to be able to program in Java on my machine.
I dowloaded the sdk bin file from sun.com, extracted it and clicked on the rpm file. It seems the the sdk is now installed (since I can go to the directory), but the java and javac commands are not recognized.
Anyone see the obvious mistake I'm making? Thanks!

Hi there,

and welcome to LQ.

I don't know what exactly the RPM
does during the installation. But the
binaries only put the actual SDK in
your filesystem, but don't come with
any startup scripts.

If you search here, you'll
find several answers to that question.

In brief you'll need to put the path's
to hte binaries in either the system
wide configuration files (/etc/profile,
or creating /etc/profile.d/java.sh - I
prefer the second technique since
it will still work if you install an upgrade
of your linux) or in your users ~/.bash_rc
or ~/.bash_login.

HIH

Cheers,
Tink

It is most likely that the directory where java and javac are located is not in your path. To see your path, try 'echo $PATH'.

You can add this directory to your path, or create a symlink (man ln) of java and javac to a directory that is already in your path (eg. /bin). Good luck!