Hi,
Just to compare notes, I'm having the same problem with the fonts.
Here's my jre version I'm running. What version and build of java(sdk or jre) are you running.

Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.3.1-b24)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.3.1-b24, mixed mode)

You might need to add the path to your jre

export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/jre/bin

here's what my PATH looks like
/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/games:/usr/games:/usr/java/jre1.3.1/bin

It works fine under 8.1(cooker). Though it does seems sometimes when connecting that it hangs or stalls. I lowered the amount of connections to 2 on mine and it seems to be handling the traffic alright now. Sometimes you have to clear all connections and reconnect to different servers to get a consistent connection.

Mandrake version:
Linux version 2.4.8-5mdk (chmou@no.mandrakesoft.com) (gcc version egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release / Linux-Mandrake 8.1)) #1 Wed Aug 15 00:31:51 CEST 2001