It sounds like the directory /usr/bin does not exist on your system. You need to find a directory to place the symlink in, do this by typing the command echo $PATH at a terminal window command prompt. It will return something like this /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/jason/bin . These directories that are returned are suitable locations for a symlink on your system. select one, on mine i could choose /usr/local/bin for instance. The command I would then execute to create the symlink, as root, would be ln -s /usr/java/j2re1.4.1_01/bin/java /usr/local/bin/java.