Solved :D
I installed the nightly build (from /nightly-builds/2009-08-02/soapui-pro/3.0.1) on one of the 32 bit systems. and it failed as above.
I checked what java versions were installed using " sudo dpkg --get-selections | grep java" and we have the following:
java-common install
libaccess-bridge-java install
libbcel-java install
libhsqldb-java install
libjaxp1.3-java install
libjline-java install
liblog4j1.2-java install
libmozillainterfaces-java install
libmx4j-java install
libregexp-java install
libservlet2.3-java install
libservlet2.4-java install
libxalan2-java install
libxerces2-java install
openoffice.org-java-common install
sun-java6-bin install
sun-java6-jdk install
sun-java6-jre install
sun-java6-plugin install
This shows that SUN Java 1.0.6 is installed. Based on experience with Kubuntu 9.04 64 bit we installed SUN Java 5 (1.0.5) as well and now SoapUI Pro runs on the 32 bit Ubuntu 8.04 systems as well.
Ubuntu (and possibly Debian) Sun-Java-6 is missing some things that SoapUI needs to be able to run.
