JavaScript and Firefox
 

From my Fedora 7 box, I use Firefox 2.0.0.9 to access a web site which suggests enabling JavaScript, and displays a "Install missing plugins..." button. Firefox's preferences page shows that JavaScript and Java are both enabled.

When I click the "Install missing plugins..." button, the Firefox "Plugin Finder Service" dialog appears, and advises that "Java Runtime Environment" is available for installation. Then I'm directed to java.com to manually download and install required software.

From java.com, I can find "Java Downloads for Linux" ver 6u3. The install instructions refer to how to install for browser versions of Mozilla and Netscape, but nothing specific for Firefox. Then I've got to identify a browser install plugins directory from which I define a symbolic link. Under /usr/lib, I can find sub-directory firefox-2.0.0.9 and mozilla, both of which have a plugins subdirectory...

In other words, I'm lost on what I specifically need to do to enable and configure JRE 6u3 for Firefox 2.0.0.9 on my F7 box. Can anyone assist me in sorting this out?

Firefox is similar enough to Netscape that you can follow the Netscape instructions. And I've never ever seen those "install plugin" dialogs work, not even when I used Netscape under Linux.

Assuming you've done the RPM download from Sun's site and installed it with you can just create a symlink to libjavaplugin_oji.so in /usr/lib/firefox/plugins .

I usually

and then

If you can't find libjavaplugin_oji.so after you install the RPM package you can issue

and then type
to find it.

After you create your symlink you may have to close and re-open all instances of Firefox in order for java to show up in about: plugins.

Thanks elfoozo for your advice - I'll try that.

Just as a general comment, this whole Java thing on Linux seems to be a bottomless pit of confusing terminology and complex install procedures that only an experienced Linux sys admin can work through. Not a good situation when trying to convince MS Windows users to move to Linux...

I am not a sys admin. I had read older versions of the Java install documentation before.

I'm pretty sure there isn't an orchestrated effort to get anybody to move to Linux. If you're the type of end user who views a computer merely as a tool, as a hammer to build the house, then perhaps Linux is not for you. You simply cannot manage a Linux machine without having at least a little desire to know what's going on inside and how things work. You'll find this out the first time you try and buy some wiz-bang piece of hardware off the shelf and have to discover if it's compatible.

But don't worry, you'd have some of that same initial "will this work" mystery if you own a Mac. The difference being, that commercial entity is orchestrating an effort to get people to switch.

Thanks, again, elfoozo. I've worked with Linux servers for years at work. My comment was about Linux's positioning within the home user community, as an alternative to the two commercial offerings. It's not unreasonable to think that a viable alternative to the bland and pervasive MS offerings would be a good thing for the home market. And the number of home/desktop Linux distros out there suggests there is an attempt to displace MS's dominance, and I wish them luck with this. After all, is it OK that there is only one model of only one automobile manufacturer that you can have in your country? Same with an O/S.

But at the same time, I can see why this might not happen. Most home users do see a computer merely as a tool, and the command line is the last thing they want to have to use, so they won't make the switch because it's "too difficult". So Linux in its present form fails for most home users. If I'd stayed with MS, I wouldn't have made my original post.