jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27 on alpha arch

Hi
Getting close but 'no cigar' in jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/bin,
$ export JAVA_OPTS="-Dbuild.compiler=jikes"
$ export 
JAVA_OPTS="-Dorg.apache.commons.logging.Log=org.apache.commons.logging.impl.SimpleLog"
starting tomcat yields:
casey99:/home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/bin# sh catalina.sh run
Using CATALINA_BASE:   /home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27
Using CATALINA_HOME:   /home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/temp
Using JAVA_HOME:       /usr/local/lib/sablevm
[INFO] Http11Protocol - Initializing Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-8080
[INFO] Catalina - Initialization processed in 7528 ms
[INFO] StandardService - Starting service Catalina
[INFO] StandardEngine - Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/5.0.27
[INFO] StandardHost - XML validation disabled
[INFO] StandardHost - Create Host deployer for direct deployment ( non-jmx )
[INFO] StandardHostDeployer - Processing Context configuration file URL 
file:/home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/conf/Catalina/localhost/admin.xml
[INFO] PropertyMessageResources - Initializing, 
config='org.apache.struts.util.LocalStrings', returnNull=true
[INFO] PropertyMessageResources - Initializing, 
config='org.apache.struts.action.ActionResources', returnNull=true
[INFO] PropertyMessageResources - Initializing, 
config='org.apache.webapp.admin.ApplicationResources', returnNull=true
[INFO] StandardHostDeployer - Processing Context configuration file URL 
file:/home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/conf/Catalina/localhost/balancer.xml
[INFO] StandardHostDeployer - Processing Context configuration file URL 
file:/home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/conf/Catalina/localhost/manager.xml
[INFO] StandardHostDeployer - Installing web application at context 
path  from URL file:/home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/webapps/ROOT
[INFO] StandardHostDeployer - Installing web application at context path 
/jsp-examples from URL 
file:/home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/webapps/jsp-examples
[INFO] StandardHostDeployer - Installing web application at context path 
/servlets-examples from URL 
file:/home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/webapps/servlets-examples
[INFO] StandardHostDeployer - Installing web application at context path 
/tomcat-docs from URL 
file:/home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/webapps/tomcat-docs
[INFO] StandardHostDeployer - Installing web application at context path 
/webdav from URL file:/home/mel/jakarta-tomcat-5.0.27/webapps/webdav
[INFO] Http11Protocol - Starting Coyote HTTP/1.1 on http-8080
java.lang.NullPointerException
-any comments welcome -Mel