It means that there is a typo in your JAVA_HOME variable.
Your home directory? Could be the cause, also.

If you type the command:

which java

and it doesn't point the exact path of the java package that you want to use then we found your problem. Since you already opened your tarball (I assume), let us move it to a more suitable locale by becoming root

su root

Create a java directory:

mkdir /usr/java

Next type this command from your /home/(user) direcotry. (ie /home/ndiscreet):

mv j2* /usr/java/

That should move your java to a standard and more appropriate location. Plugin your java plugins to mozilla:

But first find where your mozilla is located:

whereis -b mozilla

In my case, /usr/lib/mozilla because that command had actually spouted /usr/lib/mozilla/mozilla.

Now create your symlink from your java package to your mozilla direcotry:

ln -s /usr/java/j2re1.3.1/jre/plugin/i386/ns610/libjavaplugins_oji140.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

In my case the symlink is:

ln -s /usr/java/j2re1.3.1/jre/plugin/i386/ns610/libjavaplugins_oji140.so /usr/lib/mozilla-1.0.0/plugins/

or where ever mozilla is installed on your system.

Rerun OpenOffice to point to the right place but it wouldn't really be necessary if you created the proper PATH in your .bashrc or .bash_profile file which are located in your home user direcotry (ie /home/ndiscreet/.bash_profile) Notice the "." dot before .bash_profile or .bashrc as this is unix attrib for a hidden file. To see all files including hidden files, type this command:

ls -a

Continuiing with the instructions. Type this command into your .bash_profile:

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/j2re1.4.0_01
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

In your case, probably:

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/j2re1.3.1
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

Are you using blackdown or another java package? This is important as blackbdown will have to be treated differently as it has special instructions.If it is blackdown, you will have to create a symlink from your java directory to /usr/bin.

ln -s /usr/java/jre1.3.1/bin/.java_wrapper /usr/bin/

Note, that is only for blackdown java packages. All other java packages (ie IBM, Sun, and such) can skip this step.

Type this coomand.

exit

To exit su as root.

Now run the "which" java test, again:

which java

If it still says another installer or none for that matter, try this command (Be in your home directory, of course}:

source .bash_profile

NOw rerun the "which" java test one mroe time:

which java

Now you should be able to use the installer.

altoine