Java installation troubles
 

I downloaded from the sun website the j2re 1.4.2 RPM (inside a selfextracting .bin file) and installed the RPM but now what? No Java applets are working in Mozilla. Did I miss a step somewhere?

You have to put a link to the Java plugin in the Mozilla plugin directory since the rpm install doesn't do this for you. Run a search on Mozilla and plugin and you'll find tons of instructions on how to set up the link.

You need to make a symbolic link to libjavaplugin_oji.so in your Mozilla Plugins directory. Make sure you do not just copy the file! Check out the mozdev.org tutorial on how to do this http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/javalinux.html
They also have a bunch of other tutorials for plugins, you might want to check those out to.