[COLUG] Problem with Firefox Finding JRE

[Steve Roggenkamp]

I just fixed this on my machine, an AMD 64 running Fedora Core 5 
x86_64.  I had posted this same problem several months ago and someone 
posted an answer.  I procrastinated making the changes until now.

The problem is probably that you're running a 64-bit browser, but Sun 
does not provide a 64-bit plugin for Java.  The Java run time must use 
the same executable framework as the browser, since the plugin runs 
within the same process as the browser.  Thus a 32-bit executable plugin 
will not work with a 64-bit browser.

I fixed it by to downloading and installing the 32-bit version of Firefox.

I'm not familiar with SUSE, but I just downloaded the browser from 
Mozilla as a tarball and installed it in 
/usr/local/lib/firefox-2.0.0.3.  Next I downloaded Java 1.5.0_11 for 
32-bit Linux as an RPM and took the default install, which placed it in 
/usr/java/jre1.5.0_11.  I made a symbolic link from 
/usr/local/lib/firefox-2.0.0.3/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so -> 
/usr/java/jre1.5.0_11/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so.  Finally I 
moved the existing firefox in /usr/bin to firefox.old and made a 
symbolic link in /usr/bin/firefox to 
/usr/local/lib/firefox-2.0.0.3/firefox, shut down the running instance 
of Firefox and restarted.  Then Java plugins would work.

I'm thinking I also may have had to install a 32-bit compatibility 
library that allowed me to run 32-bit executables.

This should help with other plugins.

You can get the release notes for Firefox at 
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0.0.3/releasenotes/#install .

Hope this helps.

Steve

Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
> Ed Liddle wrote:
>> The following is from mozilla's website.
>> http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/faq.html#q2.2
>> Linux
>> Firefox is compiled with gcc 3.2.3, so a compatible version of the Java
>> plugin must be used. On Linux, Firefox requires JRE 1.4.2 or later.
>> If you installed the JRE 1.5.0_10 RPM, this plugin
>> is /usr/java/j2re1.5.0_10/plugin/i386/ns610-gcc32/libjavaplugin_oji.so
>> and to install it for Firefox, do the following:
>>
>>      1. Open a terminal
>>      2. Change to your Firefox plugins directory
>>      3. Issue the following command: ln
>>         -s 
>> /usr/java/j2re1.5.0_10/plugin/i386/ns610-gcc32/libjavaplugin_oji.so
>>
>> If you are using an older Linux distribution, you may need to install
>> the gcc3 support libraries, as the gcc 3.2 version of the Java plugin
>> requires libgcc_s.so.1 to operate. You may be able to find packages
>> using Google.
>>
>> If you are using an old or unofficial build of Firefox, you can check
>> which compiler was used by entering about:buildconfig in the location
>> bar and pressing enter. You will see a line such as gcc version 3.3
>> 20030226 (prerelease) (SuSE Linux), which will show the compiler that
>> was used. If gcc2.9x was used, you need to use the ns610 plugin, not the
>> ns610-gcc32 plugin.
>>
>> I hope this helps as well.
>>
>> -Ed Liddle
>> On Sat, 2007-03-24 at 08:42 -0400, Stephen P. Molnar, Ph.D. wrote:
>>> I am running Firefox 2.0.2 on a 64 bit openSUSE 10.2 system (the 
>>> package is part of the OS distribution).  JRE is installed in the 
>>> defualt subdirectories /usr/java/jrel.5.0_11.
>>>
>>> Whenever I have to access an application that requires java I get 
>>> the message:
>>>
>>> 'Additional plugins ar required to display all the media on this page.'
>>>
>>> Then Firefox tells me that the following plugins are available
>>> Java Runatime Environment
>>>
>>> but the Plugin Service Finder tells me that JRE is not available and 
>>> we go around and around in a circle of diminishing radius.
>>>
>>> Whst do I need to change?
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance.
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> colug432 mailing list colug432 at colug.net
>>> http://www.colug.net/mailman/listinfo/colug432
>>
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>>
> Thanks for the reply.  I had looked at the firefox web site but didn't 
> find anything.
>
> I had tried every combination of ln -s that I could think of and none of
>  them solved the problem withe jre1.5.0_11 so I installed j2re1.4.2_13 
> but that didn't work either.
>
> the version of firefox that I have was compiles with gcc 4.1.2 20061115.
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