SDK 1.4.1 and Redhat 8

Question

Okay then...
I'm running Redhat 8 and Netscape 4.75 and I'd like to run the J2 sdk v1.4.1.
I have it installed and it will happily compile, it will run command line applications. The problem is it won't run applets, or anything with a GUI. They will compile but when it comes to running.....not a chance
I have the plug-in installed on netscape. And am using the 'demo' applets supplied from Sun with the sdk to test this function.
If I try to run the applet one of two things happens.
1) By double clicking in the file manager it launches mozilla (which also has the plug-in) the window comes up with the html presented and an icon on the screen that represents the applet, when I click on the applet I get a error message " This page contains information of a type (applicatio/x-java-vm) that can only be view with the appropriatwe plug-in"
2) I open the file via Netscape ( File -> Open Page -> Choose File etc etc) and the html page pops up with the message " java.lang.ClassFormatError - Bad major version number" along the bottom of the screen.
3) I use the command prompt (java MyApplet) and I get a hole host of errors, mainly to do with class Lang... but others also.... there's too many to metion here...
So then a few questions arise.... why doesn't the plug-in work... and why don't applets work at all??? I use the applets on the java.sun tutorial pages and they come up without a problem.... unless I take the code which doesn't compile and doesn't run... most odd.
Anyway, I'm completely out of ideas and all and any help is greatly appreciated.... HAS ANYONE ELSE EXPERIENCED THIS...
Actually I have sonce removed the SDK and replaced ut with the run time environment, the same thing happens.
Cheers
Adam

Answer 1

I got some of my answer in the following web page
http://home.bredband.no/gaulyk/java/tutorial/javaredhat.html
The problem I ran into was when I installed Redhat 8.0 with every
package, the /usr/bin/java is in 1.3.1 and it was not compatiable
with even jdk1.3.1_07, and of course j2sdk1.4.1_02 because
many changes to javax.swing went in.
The about web page suggested to create the file /etc/profile.d/java.sh
to include PATH=/usr/java/j2sdk1.4.1_02/bin:$PATH.
I also installed javax.comm.properties from javax.comm.api
package in /usr/java/j2sdk1.4.1_02/jre/lib directory
to get rid of the run time error from GNU that invokes
java applet.
If anyone is interesting to run applet or web application that
needs special fonts other than Enlish, please download
fonts to /usr/java/j2sdk1.4.1_02/jre/fonts directory.
I just installed some Chinese tru type fonts (.ttf) in that
directory and am able display Chinese character with
given encoding. You have to tell for example JTextArea what
font you want to display and FileInputStream for example
what encoding you want to use in your java code.
In Windows, every thing work right after I downloads the jdk
I do not need to do anything special because my Window 2000
and Window XP already have Chinese fonts I need. I also
use Textpad to code, compile and run my java application and
applet. Textpad is a nice tool on Window environment
that color code Java program key words and you can double
click compiling error and get to the error right away.
Hope this info help.