This whole issue has been caused by me wanting to use firebird on slack 9 with the java VM plugin.

I followed the instructions for downloading and installing the jre and simlinking the java plugin in the mozilla plugin directory.

I started firebird and when i typed about:plugins in the address bar it showed the java plugin installed. When I go to use it however, the browser crashed.

So, I narrowed it down to a problem with a my java install.

/usr/java/j2re1.4.2/bin/java -version
Error occurred during initialization of VM
java/lang/NoClassDefFoundError: java/lang/Object

I have read some stuff about CLASSPATH, but i don't have a clue if that is a program variable or a bash variable and what it should be set to. Help would really be appreciated.

after finding several of the same problems with 1.4.2 and no fixes on google, I did the following.

I uninstalled my 1.4.2 version.

I followed the instructions from

http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux/....4-status.html

and downloaded their 1.4.1 version. Make sure (if you are using a gcc 3.2 compiled mozilla version) to get the gcc 3.2 compiled version of java. My file was called:

j2re-1.4.1-01-linux-i586-gcc3.2.bin

They have install instructions on their page which I followed (pretty easy).

Then I made the symlink for the plugin (explained on their page or at http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/faqs/).

Now everything works.

i wish i had found this post earlier, thank you so much!