smybolic link to /usr/local/bin not running the program unless logged in as su

smybolic link to /usr/local/bin not running the program unless logged in as su

I'm trying to get eclipse 3.8 installed on Ubuntu 10.04. I've put the extracted files on:
/opt
I put a symbolic link in:
/usr/local/bin
ls -s /usr/local/bin:
eclipse -> /opt/eclipse/eclipse
My path has /usr/local/bin in it...the permissions for the sym link are 777.
I also did as su:
chmod 755 /opt/eclipse/eclipse
When I try to run eclipse as root, it works ( at least it trys, getting java error ). Trying as regular user just gives me the prompt that I need to install eclipse-platform from the repo.
TIA