Can Java just shoot me?

[Tom Horsley]

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:51:11 -0700
Karl Larsen <k5di at zianet.com> wrote:

>     What else do I need to do?

Here's the complete walkthrough that finally worked for
me in the install java game :-).

As root, do this:

1. yum erase java-1.7.0-icedtea-plugin

That gets the icedtea version out of the way so there
will be no browser plugin conflict with the sun version
(probably there are more subtle ways to deal with this,
but this big hammer worked for me).

2. Go to http://www.java.com/ in firefox, and click the
big green button, then click a few more buttons to
ask to download the 32 bit linux self extracting rpm.

3. This gets you a file named jre-6u3-linux-i586-rpm.bin
in whatever directory firefox downloaded to (default firefox
setup for downloads is the ~/Desktop directory).

4. cd to that directory

5. chmod a+x jre-6u3-linux-i586-rpm.bin

6. Now as root run:

./jre-6u3-linux-i586-rpm.bin

That will spew a bunch of license junk to agree to, then
unpack and install the rpm.

7. Still as root:

cd /usr/java/jre1.6.0_03/lib/i386/xawt/
sed -i 's/XINERAMA/FAKEEXTN/g' libmawt.so 

That hacks around a bug, allowing things to work on Fedora 8.

8. Also still as root:

cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
ln -s /usr/java/jre1.6.0_03/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so .

That actually links the plugin to a location where firefox
can find it (should work for all users from there).

Ta-DA! After those simple and obvious steps, Java works in
32bit firefox. On a 64 bit system you can run 32 bit firefox
via the command:

setarch i386 firefox

(No doubt there is another set of simple and obvious steps to
get it working in 64 bit firefox with the nspluginwrapper
stuff, but I'm happy just running 32 bit firefox).

Oops! I forgot to mention, if you haven't already installed
it for other reasons, you may also need to run as root:

yum install compat-libstdc++-33.i386

That gets the old C++ libs needed by the plugin binary.
(I already had them, but several of the web pages on java
say you need to get 'em, and it can't hurt).