I tried throwing up a java install of Limewire a few days ago, and in the process tried to d/l and install jre1.3 from Sun, but installing a new version of java such that the old one is replaced seems nightmarish due to the distro differences. The .bin will install fine wherever I tell it to, and will work from it's installed location, the problem is the o/s doesn't know that new version is there.

So, my question is, Sun displays a "Red Hat RPM" version, and I was tempted to download that as RPM's eliminate this problem. Don't RPM's essentially work no matter what distro you throw them on? Must I download the straight .bin install and tinker with environment variables until I replace the old java?