harryc. " Are we talking about the same thing? I need to make a change to $PATH"

Sorry about that, I read
"But how do I delete
CODE
/usr/lib/jvm/jre/bin " and jumped to symlink conclusion.

Well it was a good drill for me anyway; something that I should/need to know. I apologize for wasting your time though.

IMHO whatever suse executes last is what is going to rule. At least it seems that way to me when I read my boot log. So one way is to put you PATH code in the proper config file near the end. Saying that, I looked for /etc/profile.local & I do beleive that I do not have it, although /etc/profile says to use it.

I got some help earlier with nano, I was using "export PATH=$Paath:/usr/local/bin" and asked for help to make it permanent & was recommended a symlink solution = "ln -s /usr/local/bin/nano /usr/bin/nano which worked like a charm.

If you are using j2re1.4.2 have you tried removing jre in yast?

let us know how it turns out.