The problem turns out to be due to some '\r' characters in the "runLime.sh" script in the new version.

I had an older version (4.12) of LimeWire working on Linux, but when I tried to install and use LimeWire version 4.14 I got the exact behavior that you described. When I replaced the "runLime.sh" script in the new version with the corresponding script from the old version, the problem went away. The files look the same to the eye, but examining them using "od -c" shows the following:

OLD runLime.sh (LimeWire 4.12, good):

0000000 # ! / b i n / s h \n # \n # R u
0000020 n s L i m e W i r e . T h
0000040 i s s c r i p t m u s t b
0000060 e e x e c u t e d i n y o
0000100 u r L i m e W i r e \n # i n

NEW runLime.sh (LimeWire 4.14, bad):

0000000 # ! / b i n / b a s h \r \n # \r \n
0000020 # R u n s L i m e W i r e .
0000040 T h i s s c r i p t m u
0000060 s t b e e x e c u t e d i
0000100 n y o u r L i m e W i r e \r

You can see the '\r' characters that are causing the problem.

The simplest solution would be to grab the runLime.sh script from an older (working) version of LimeWire, if you can. Otherwise you can try to get rid of the '\r' characters (the "tr" command would work, as would a sed script).