I was trying to install JRE on my 64-bit ubuntu 10.04 installation. Just to be sure that that is what I really want, I need to run a .jar file. I downloaded java from this link. Then I chose linux x64 and downloaded the tar file, I extracted it and tried to compile the source code but had the error. I don't know whether I downloaded the wrong file or I ran the wrong commands in the terminal After I changed directory using the cd command to the extracted directory, I tried ./configure but I got this error: ./configure: command not found I know that there is an easier way to install java but I just want to understand how to install an application from source in linux as it seems that I will face this problem in the future. Thanks in advance