Installing Sun's JRE 1.6 under openSUSE 10.2

[Rachelsdad]

As with many things Linux, there is more than one way to skin this cat. Today, I pretty much formalized what works for me (as a CLE and CLP, I get to set up my share of SUSE boxes these days).

First, try checking for a SUSE update for the JVM. I like to add http://packman.unixheads.com/suse/10.2 as an installation source. In this case, the newest I could get was 1.5.0. So, off to Sun to get the latest.

The Sun JRE installs to /usr/java/jre1.x.x_xx, creating two symlinks under /usr/java to the binary itself: latest (points to the newest JVM), and default (points to latest).

openSUSE uses /etc/alternatives/java as its pointer to the default jvm. This is a symlink to (by default) /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.4.2-gcj/bin/java.

We need to delete the existing symlink:

rm /etc/alternatives/java

and create a new one pointing to our (Sun) default:

ln -s /usr/java/default/bin/java /etc/alternatives/java

Next, we need to update the Java plugin for Firefox.

The Java plugin is always a symlink (copying the real file there will crash the browser).

Check to see if there is already a JVM plugin registered for Firefox:

dir /usr/lib/firefox/plugins

If so, remove it.

rm /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so

Next, create a new symlink:

ln -s usr/java/jre1.6.0_07/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/

(This does not update the plugin for Konqueror.)

Start the browser and run aboutlugins to check and/or go to Sun's Java test page to verify that your plugin is responsive.

[Rachelsdad]

Until I figure out how to edit my own post (which I am supposed to be able to do), there is a typo in the last bit of code (to create the new symlink). The ln command line should read:

ln -s /usr/java/jre1.6.0_07/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/

(Note the "/" before "usr/" - this makes a world of difference as the link should not be relative to the plugins directory!!)

[franko_1]

Thank you for your post. It is brilliant and so simple. To just YaST the thing or use repositories are fine for some things but when Sun come out with a new update they give you the RPM which does the installing so well. Now your solution is a perfect complement to the RPM. The cherry on the top. The same idea works with the JDK.

[Rachelsdad]

Thanks for your kind words!

Yes, I must say that I have fretted over these blasted Java updates since the timezone change last year, and sort of stumbled on a different way to hacksaw & shoehorn the things in on each machine. Try as I might to actually document what I did, it seemed that every experience was a new one.

This time, however, I made sure to start with a clean install of the OS, so I would have no assistance from anything not out of the box, and worked slowly and methodically until I felt I had a system which I could replicate on another machine (which I tested before drafting this).

Again, thanks for your thoughts. Posts like that make the time and effort worthwhile.

Cheers.

Lewis