SJava linux installation problems

Hi:

I am extremely new to linux so bare with the questions.  I am trying to 
install the SJava package for R on linux (debian).

I issue the R CMD INSTALL SJava_0.68-0.tar.gz and get the following error

Cannot find Java.
Please set your path to include the directory in which the java executable 
resides,
or set the environment variable JAVA_HOME before this configure script is 
run.

I have j2sdk1.4.2_08 installed and I am assuming that the I need to set the 
environment variable JAVA_HOME to its path, so I did the following

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/j2sdk1.4.2/j2sdk1.4.2_08/bin/

I get the same error as before.

Can someone please help me if I am missing something?  Your help will be 
greatly appreciated.

-Dhiren