Sorry to ask you to hammer this nail again, but...
I run Debian with kernel 2.4.27-1-386, and I use firefox. I'm trying to install Java, and have installed the non-rpm java... I think. The good news is I have that shared library file sitting in:
/home/jake/jre1.5.0_01/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
And I found my firefox plugins directory here:
/etc/mozilla-firefox/plugins
I went to root and made that link (the ln- one) so that now, when I use the File Browser, I can find:
/etc/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so
But it labels it as a type "link to shared library" rather than just a "shared library," so I think that's good too. So I restarted XWindows, opened FireFox, typed "about

lugins" and get that I have no installed plugins. Grrrrrr...
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance!
Jake