i probably won't get around to working on this until the weekend, so thanks in advance.

BUT, are you sure you need the SDK? i saw another post (i think here) that explicitly stated that you only needed the SDK if you planned on writing java code. it seems crazy to me that a 21MB download isn't sufficient to run java applications under linux, but a 5 MB download is sufficient for windows. after much frustration, i booted to windows and installed the whole thing (limewire and java) in 30 mins. now after a two hour download of the runtime environment, i need to go download the 40MB SDK?

<rant> as a new linux user, there's a lot to like, but installing software has been extremely frustrating. the whole reason, i'm installing limewire is that i tried to install gtk+ gnutella. first i needed to install gcc to compile gtk+ gnutella. then i found i needed gtk. then i found i needed glib. at least they were all on the CDs. even after i installed all these programs and libraries, gtk can't find glib and without configuring gtk, I can't install gtk+ gnutella. i had set up limewire on a previous windows machine, so i thought, that can't be too hard, but now i'm having the same kind of problems. i won't even get started with my adventures in trying to install wine (still unsuccessful). it sure has a way of making a fairly intelligent person feel like a moron. it shouldn't take days to install a fairly simple piece of software and i notice that even more experienced linux users in these forums have had a lot of the same problems; it's just that they usually have enough experience to figure out what to try when the default options don't work. </rant>