updating java
 

every time i test my version of Java, in either Ubuntu 8.1 or Linux Mint,on the Java website it says there is a newer version availible (the current one being jre6 update 12 i believe).
Can anyone tell me how i upgrade the java version as when i have downloaded the latest java version there seems to be no programmes that are able to install it.

I don't know if there will be update in the repos of your distributions,since I don't use them,but if java is already installed then it should be,maybe you just have to wait.The other way is to install newer version of java manually and for that you have instructions on this web page http://www.java.com/en/download/help/5000010500.xml