LinuxQuestions.org - Installing LimeWire with user privileges

This is a nublie tutorial for a problem a ran into multiple times when 'installing' LimeWire Basic.

I am trying to get out of the habit of installing programs with apt-get requiring (for install) root privileges when not needed. Not that I don't like apt-get, it's pretty awesome. So a lot of the apps I run at the user level are in my /home/me/apps folder. It can make things a little more complicated, but with programs such as firefox, thunderbird, LimeWire, jre..etc. it isn't too bad. Also, I use this as only a personal desktop computer...

so I have jre1.6.0_11 unpacked in my /home/me/apps folder along with LimeWire. My problem is that when I execute ./runLime.sh I get an error like this:

OOPS, unable to locate java exec .....

This shouldn't be happening (since I have java installed in /usr/bin/java). So I decided to point runLime.sh to jre1.6.0_11 in my home folder and here is how.

vim runLime.sh (showing only the needed portion):

"....

look_for_java()
{
JAVADIR=/usr/bin
if look_for_javaImpl ; then
return 0
fi
JAVADIR=/usr/lib
if look_for_javaImpl ; then
return 0
fi
JAVADIR=/usr/java
if look_for_javaImpl ; then
return 0
fi
JAVADIR=/opt
if look_for_javaImpl ; then
return 0
fi
return 1
}

....."

even though I have a valid java exec. in /usr/bin, every time I have tried to run LimeWire it never finds this. So I completely removed the aforementioned section from the shell script and replaced it with:

"......

JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR=/home/me/jre1.6.0_11/

...."

Simple problem I know but it took me a minute to figure out and the problem occurred on multiple unrelated occasions. This works for me.

I guess I should also add the reason I like using the jre1.6x as apposed to the 'apt-get installed' java V1.5x, is the problem I had with java and compiz. With java V1.5x the contents in the Limewire window would not be drawn rendering LimeWire non-functional while running compiz. This hasn't happened with jre1.6x