Java plugin to firefox
 

I have Java runtime 1.6 installed in Mandriva, but can't get the plugin for firefox to work.

I know you have to make a link in the /.mozilla directory, but I've never done such before and don't know if it worked, there is nothing there.

[root@Cory-desktop cory]# ls -s /opt/java/jre1.6.0_13/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplu
140 /opt/java/jre1.6.0_13/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so*

/home/cory/.mozilla/plugins/:
total 0

obviously it isn't working right. What am I doing wrong here. Java -version shows java as working.

Making that link is something of the old days, it should pretty much work out of the box on any recent distro. Then again, I see you installed jre manually. You shouldn't unless you really need to and you know what you are doing.

As for the link, I'm afraid I don't see what you are doing there. The syntax is
ln -s source target
Now this would be your source:
/opt/java/jre1.6.0_13/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
the target would be:
/home/cory/.mozilla/plugins/
Although you would probably prefer the system-wide mozilla directory as a target (it should be under /usr/lib)

As for java working, that depends. Are you sure it is the Sun 1.6 version or another one?

Ubuntu has huge repositories, which include java and the java plugin for firefox. Remove the java that you installed manually. Then make sure you have the universe and multiverse repositories enabled (system > administration > software_sources). Then just open a terminal and run:
Or open synaptic package manager and search for and install those 2 packages.
Then restart Firefox.