My guess would be that you don't have a Java Runtime Environment setup on your system. It's most likely in the YaST repositories, so start up YaST and search for Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Once you find it, install it, and it should set up your Java environment correctly.

If it isn't in YaST, go to java.sun.com and manually download and install JRE.

joeprogammer, thanks very much for the attention. Sorry, I should have mentioned I suspected the same reason and already installed manually jre. A quick test of the java executable worked well. I couldn't make the default path settings in the profile yet to make java available for all users but does that really matter when I am logged in as root?

>but does that really matter when I am logged in as root?
Yes, it does. Try the following at the command prompt before attempting to execute the program:

Replace /location/of/java/command with the location of the java command, obviously. If this works, you can go ahead and edit your shell's profile by adding a line somewhere that reads the following:

joeprogrammer, thanks a lot for your quick support. Made it easy for me to continue. Great advise.