frazzled about connecting to dbase (MS Access)

[mrodent]

hi,

am trying to change from WXP to Linux... at the moment am trying to get Eclipse working...

in fact I've got it working very easily... but I'm having less success connecting to an MS Access dbase.

   // try to set up driver
    try { Class.forName("org.apache.derby.jdbc.EmbeddedDriver");}
    catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }

    // try to connect to the dbase
    try { c = DriverManager.getConnection( "jdbc:derby:/media/sda5/TM proj/ragbag.mdb", "", ""); }
    
    catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }

I'm getting:
1) java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.derby.jdbc.EmbeddedDriver

2) java.sql.SQLException: No suitable driver found for jdbc:derby:/media/sda5/TM proj/ragbag.mdb

somebody in some forum somewhere said sthg about adding a classpath so the driver would be accessible... but where is it? Someone else said sthg about a plug-in for Eclipse... yet other people have said MS Access is difficult to connect to in Linux (in which case I would have to try to convert it to another format)...

as you can see, I'm floundering and need an ABC about what I do to set up the driver and then connect

all enlightenment gratefully received

Mike