Have you since checked the release notes...
... for notations that it works with glibc > 2.2.4 now?
Here's what I'm running at home:
\nanderson@spork:~$ java -version\njava version "1.4.1"\nJava(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build Blackdown-1.4.1-01)\nJava HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build Blackdown-1.4.1-01, mixed mode)\nanderson@spork:~$ dpkg -l | grep libc\nii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-10 GNU C Library: Shared libraries and Timezone\n
And at work:
\nsanderson@bd00402:~$ /usr/local/java/bin/java -version\njava version "1.4.1_06"\nJava(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.1_06-b01)\nJava HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.1_06-b01, mixed mode)\nsanderson@bd00402:~$ dpkg -l | grep libc\nii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-10 GNU C Library: Shared libraries and Timezone\n
I haven't tried 1.4.2 yet.