Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/zerog/lax/LAX

(I am using Mandrake 8.1 and KDE 2.2.1, and am a complete Newbie to Linux. I have migrated from Windows due to the fact that it sux a$$. Please be considerate of my limited knowlage of Linux... ) I have tried almost everything suggested on this forum but i still get this error when trying to install Lime Wire:
Preparing to install...
Extracting the installation resources from the installer archive...
Configuring the installer for this system's environment...

Launching installer...

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/zerog/lax/LAX

I started off with the Kaffe 1.0.6 version of java, and removed it because it was giving me completely different errors, and most people said to remove it. I then downloaded and installed the Java 2 Runtime Environment Standard Edition, v 1.3.1_02. I then tried to install LimeWire again, without much success. But this time I at least got the same error as the rest of the people. I tried typing in java -version but it keet saying that that the java command was not found. I then decided to remove 1.3.1 and install 1.4.0. After I had completed this the error still remained. Whenever I type in java -version it still says that the command java is not found. I have tried chaing the PATH in the LimeWireLinux.bin file and this didn't do anything either. My GUI software installer (Mandrake Software Manager) says that the java 1.4.0 package is installed and the directoy /usr/java/j2re1.4.0/ exists. Typing java -version in the console still returns the error: command not found. I am unsure as to what to do. Any help on this matter would be greartly appreciated.