Firefox Java Plugins

Sat Sep 1 15:32:30 MST 2007

On Sat, 2007-09-01 at 11:39 -0700, Harold Michels wrote:
> I am running Fedora Core 6.
> 
> Core 6, coming out of the box runs Firefox version 1.5
> I up graded it to version 2.0
> This was early days in my use of the system.
> I did not know how to upgrade properly, and probably still do not as I
> have 
> to let yum do it automagically.
> I found out afterward that Fedora does not like and is not supporting
> version 2.0.
> I don't know exactly where the new version of Firefox went to. RPM put
> it
> somewhere.
> I have managed to set up shortcuts to it that work to launch version
> MailScanner warning: numerical links are often malicious:2.0.0.3.
> When the system launches the program it launches Firefox version1.5.
> Into this mix I am trying to get Java plugin to run in Firefox
> MailScanner warning: numerical links are often malicious:2.0.0.3.
> Per the web site I am supposed to create a symbolic link to the
> java .so file
>    "libjavaplugin_oji.so"
> This is in the download directory which in turn is in my home
> directory. 
> 
> It is there because I do not understand how Linux handles the files as
> to
> where they are supposed to be stored. In spite of many hours of
> research, I
> still find my self very ignorant. It almost looks like it does not
> matter. 
> If this the case I stand astonished.
> 
> At any rate, per instructions from Mozilla I created a symbolic link
> to the
> target file and put it in the .mozilla/plugins folder. After
> restarting
> Firefox, I still do not find java in my plugin window "Tools | Add
> Ins" 
> 
> I can see many things I may have done wrong, but I am not sure how to
> fix them.
> 
> I would like to get Java running so I can participate in Alan's
> Robocode demo.
----
I would presume that you installed as a user rather than as root.
Probably the best way to figure out what is actually installed is to run
some tests as user and then as root...

as user...
[craig at lin-workstation ~]$ which firefox
/usr/bin/firefox
[craig at lin-workstation ~]$ rpm -q --whatprovides /usr/bin/firefox
firefox-1.5.0.12-1.fc5

(yes, I'm still on Fedora Core 5 on my home system)

now it's possible - especially if you installed via a 'tarball', that
you could have a bin directory in your $HOME directory and installed a
newer version of firefox there which *might* be revealed by the above
'which firefox' command

still as user...
[craig at lin-workstation ~]$ ls -l .mozilla/plugins
total 2068
-rw-r--r-- 1 craig craig     856 May 20  2004 flashplayer.xpt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 craig craig 2096844 May 20  2004 libflashplayer.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 craig craig      51 May 28  2006 libnpsoplugin.so
-> /usr/lib/openoffice.org2.0/program/libnpsoplugin.so

(oops...that's why flash is a bit wacky...I've still got a very old
flashplayer plugin in my user directory...) OK some clean up...

[craig at lin-workstation ~]$ rm .mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
[craig at lin-workstation ~]$ rm .mozilla/plugins/flashplayer.xpt

which version of firefox?
# /usr/bin/firefox -v
Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.12, Copyright (c) 1998 - 2007 mozilla.org

I don't mind 1.5.0.x at this point but anyway...

Now, I'm going to become root...

[craig at lin-workstation ~]$ su -
Password:
[root at lin-workstation ~]# ls -l /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
total 6132
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      39 Aug 19 18:10 libflashplayer.so
-> /usr/lib/flash-plugin/libflashplayer.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      53 May 27  2006 libjavaplugin_oji.so
-> /usr/lib/jvm/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  281080 Feb 28  2007 mplayerplug-in-dvx.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    1021 Feb 28  2007 mplayerplug-in-dvx.xpt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  281080 Feb 28  2007 mplayerplug-in-qt.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    1021 Feb 28  2007 mplayerplug-in-qt.xpt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  281080 Feb 28  2007 mplayerplug-in-rm.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    1021 Feb 28  2007 mplayerplug-in-rm.xpt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  281876 Feb 28  2007 mplayerplug-in.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  281080 Feb 28  2007 mplayerplug-in-wmp.so
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    1021 Feb 28  2007 mplayerplug-in-wmp.xpt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    1021 Feb 28  2007 mplayerplug-in.xpt
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      34 May 28  2006 nphelix.so
-> /opt/RealPlayer/mozilla/nphelix.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root      35 May 28  2006 nphelix.xpt
-> /opt/RealPlayer/mozilla/nphelix.xpt
-rwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4750331 Nov  6  2005 nppdf.so

Thus I can have plugins installed as a user in my ~/.mozilla/plugins
directory or for all users on this system in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
directory

So now I've got to figure out where the libjavaplugin is located...

# update slocate database
[root at lin-workstation ~]# updatedb

# locate the java plugin for mozilla/firefox
[root at lin-workstation ~]# locate libjavaplugin_oji.so

# note, I've got an older version of Java installed...your version will
likely
# be a lot newer which is why I am telling you to use the 'locate' to
find
# the java plugin that you have installed...

# this is the one I want
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.06/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so

# this is not the one I want unless I want to run an old version of
mozilla that
# was compiled with gcc-2.96
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.06/jre/plugin/i386/ns7-gcc29/libjavaplugin_oji.so

# finally, create the link 
[root at lin-workstation ~]# ln -s \
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.06/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/   

Finally...the way to add packaging for Fedora Core 6/7 is to at least
add livna repository...

Fedora Core 6...
rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-6.rpm

Fedora 7
rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-7.rpm

once you have the livna repository installed, adding the 'non-free'
packages is pretty simple...

# install MPlayer both as Firefox plugin and standalone player with
codecs...
yum install mplayer mplayerplug-in mplayer-gui mplayer-fonts

# install xmms codecs...
yum install xmms-mp3 xmms-faad2

If you have an ATI or nVidia video card, you would definitely want to
have the livna repository installed because they have the proprietary,
binary only drivers all pre-packaged for you.

Craig