Before installing j2sdk, you need to download libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2.bz2 from and decompress it to your source directory. Install j2sdk by running the following commands: mkdir java && mv j2sdk*.bin java && cd java && chmod 711 j2sdk*.bin && ./j2sdk*.bin && mv j2sdk*.bin .. && cp ../libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2 j2sdk&j2sdk-version;/jre/lib/i386 Test the installation with the following commands: export JAVA_HOME=$PWD/j2sdk&j2sdk-version; && j2sdk&j2sdk-version;/jre/bin/java -version If you get a version line, a description of the runtime environment and a desrciption of the client VM (virtual machine), you are ready to go. If you are not going to compile java from scratch, move the java tree to /opt: mv j2sdk&j2sdk-version; /opt/java