Further to the sad tails of install issues, especially on Mandrake, I have the same problem on Mandrake 8.1 - i.e.

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/zerog/lax/LAX

I have tried Java 1.3 and 1.4 with the same results.

However, I can get beyond this problem by hacking the install script and immediately before the java invocation adding:

cd $INSTALLER_DATA_DIR
unzip installer.zip

However, I then get:
__________________________________________________ ________________________

Installer: InstallAnywhere 4.5.3 Enterprise Build 1394
__________________________________________________ ________________________

Unable to find the directory 'locales/' in the Zip file
java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.zerog.ia.installer.util.ExternalPropertyLoader .isCurrentLocaleAvailable(Unknown Source)
at com.zerog.ia.installer.Installer.loadAllExternalPr operties(Unknown Source)
at com.zerog.ia.installer.Main.j(Unknown Source)
at com.zerog.ia.installer.Main.e(Unknown Source)
at com.zerog.ia.installer.Main.b(Unknown Source)
at com.zerog.ia.installer.Main.main(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
at com.zerog.lax.LAX.launch(Unknown Source)
at com.zerog.lax.LAX.main(Unknown Source)
Invocation of this Java Application has caused an InvocationTargetException. This application will now exit. (LAX)

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Unfortunatley I no absolutley zip about Java so cannot really add anything else, except that it looks to me as though problem is something to do with the InstallAnywhere routines on Mandrake. From previous threads it would seem that these probably work on Mandrake 8.2, but not on 8.1.

Hope this is useful.