Help installing JDK JRE SuSE
 

I just tried installing the JRE going through sun's instructions. i know that the jre did install in my /usr/java directory. but i do not think it is working with firefox?? when i go to test java on suns java test website firefox says i have missing plugins. do i have to take more steps? the JRE is installed but do files need to be copied to other directories? How would this apply to the JDK? I have installed the JDK in windows the only tricky part was to remember to set the path. do i have to do the equivalent in linux for firefox to see my JRE and eventually when i decide to install the JDK?

Thanks

Blake

P.S. I am Running SuSE Linux

Okay...
 

I have found a text file in /etc/java
it is named java.conf
it contains the following text:

# System-wide Java configuration file -*- sh -*-
#
# JPackage Project <http://www.jpackage.org/>
# Location of jar files on the system
JAVA_LIBDIR=/usr/share/java
# Location of arch-specific jar files on the system
JNI_LIBDIR=/usr/lib64/java
# Root of all JVM installations
JVM_ROOT=/usr/lib64/jvm
# You can define a system-wide JVM root here if you're not using the default one
#JAVA_HOME=$JVM_ROOT/java
# Options to pass to the java interpreter
JAVACMD_OPTS=

Should i try changing #JAVA_HOME= to where a file called java is in my new install. it is an executable file called java. so i would try this but dont want to cause any damage to the computer?? could use someone to tell me i am trying the correct thing.

so the line would read:

#JAVA_HOME=$/usr/java/jre.1.6.0_02/bin/java

not sure about the punctuation for the slash and the dollar sign. should i only have the dollar or only the slash?

what does the dollar symbol mean in linux?

PPS this is 64 bit linux

Hopefully, this will help clear things up some...

The hash mark (#) at the start of the line means it's a comment, so it doesn't really matter what you set it to. Generally speaking, if you installed java so it's in /var/jre1.6.0_02 (with bin underneath that directory) then you would want to set JAVA_HOME to /var/jre1.6.0_02. If you type
ls $JAVA_HOME/bin
you should get a listing of the 40-some files in /var/jre1.6.0_02/bin (which is what $JAVA_HOME/bin expands to).

It sounds like your problem is directly related to the fact that you're trying to use something that doesn't exist; Sun's Java doesn't currently have a plugin.

You said the how-to that someone else pointed you to was over your head; all it was saying, pretty much, is that - on a platform where a plugin is part of the JRE or the JDK - you would figure out where the java plugin was create a symbolic link from your browser's "plugins" dir to it. This generally works:

$ cd $JAVA_HOME
$ find . -name "libjavaplugin*oji.so"
./jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
./jre/plugin/i386/ns7-gcc29/libjavaplugin_oji.so

Of the two listed, the plugin I want is the first (my gcc's newer than 2.9). Next, figure out where your browser's plugins directory is; some use /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins for everything, some (like firefox) use /usr/lib/usr/lib/firefox-2.0.0.x where x is the minor version number like 6, 7 or 8. Assuming that yours uses /usr/lib/firefox-2.0.0.8/plugins, you would:

$ cd /usr/lib/firefox-2.0.0.8/plugins
$ ln -s $JAVA_HOME/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so .

That should do it. Exit ALL browser and email windows (if you're not sure if it's related, close it) and, when you start your browser back up, you should have java support.

With some plugins, under some circumstances, in order to get the browser to figure out that you installed something, you have to find and delete all instances of xpti.dat, pluginreg.dat, and compreg.dat. I would make sure everything else is correct before going that route; it can end up taking a while and making for a lot of work, especially if that's not really the problem.

It depends on the shell you're using. In the BASH shell, it means you want the value of a variable (eg., if the variable is PATH, then $PATH means "the value of PATH").

Then you're not going to get Sun's Java Plugin to work with Linux; they don't yet supply a 64-bit browser plugin. If you need the full JDK then you might want to grab Blackdown's JDK package; it's a bit dated (1.4.2) but still runs the bulk of what's out there. In my experience, it's been very stable (at least, if you choose an O/S that it works well with). Check out this link: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...plugin-582133/

If it's just the browser plugin you're after, or if you want / need both, you might consider getting them from different sources. Kaffeine (the browser) seems to work well; the GCJ web plugin has virtually no security features implemented yet. So, you might consider using GNU Classpath for development, etc. but something else for browsing.

Or, you might want to consider taking the Eclipse route (www.eclipse.org); if you're using Fedora or Debian etc. there should be ready-built packages with the Java SDK and a pretty snazzy IDE. And an optional plugin; you'll want to verify this, but I believe they're (Eclipse) shipping a beta-quality browser plugin.

One final thought - one of the biggest areas where FOSS is lagging is documentation, partiuclarly documentation for new users. If you can somehow manage to get a system up and running with, say, Sun's Java, and at the same time, set up an open source development system, I would think that you would have a uniquely advantageous perspective from which to write some of the documentation for that system, and for users new to it. Maybe pick a project and get in touch w someone there regarding what you're considering doing.

Good luck; I hope this helps.

- Larry