Joe:~# make-jpkg /home/joe/jre You are real root -- unfortunately, some Java distributions have install scripts that directly manipulate /etc, and may cause some inconsistencies on your system. Instead, you should become a non-root user and run: fakeroot make-jpkg /home/joe/jre which will allow no damage to be done to your system files and still permit the Java distribution to successfully extract. Aborting.