[plug] More installing Java questions...

[Gavin Corfield]

  In windows I could set a "path" in
> autoexec.bat to work around this and allow me to type Java commands
> directly from the command prompt: is there a complementary method in
> Linux?

yes:

to change a user's path variables edit ~/.bashrc 

add line to end $PATH=$PATH:/whatever/path/you/want

if you look at man bash there are details on which files control the
system wide environment variables

I asked a similar questionabout 6 weeks ago so if you check the archives
for queries on environment variables you should find more info

gavin