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Re: Installing a JRE plug-in



andy wrote:
> Jeff D wrote:
> >Thats odd, it should create a symlink to 
> >/etc/alternatives/mozilla-javaplugin.so

Agreed.

> >what does update-alternatives --list mozilla-javaplugin.so give you?
> >it should give you something like this:
> >/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
> 
> It gives me something very similar:
> /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
> 
> I wasn't aware of that command to be honest, so hence was using find and 
> whereis.

That may be a source of a problem.  If you have previously created or
modified the alternatives symlinks, even if you did not know at the
time that they were part of the alternatives, then from there on
forward the update-alternatives command will respect your
modification.  It will show this by listing the symlinks as 'manual'
instead of 'auto'.  This is because Debian's alternatives system tries
hard not to override the local admin's explicit configuration.  If you
told it something then it will respect that.

I have seen this confusion cause trouble with java in particular when
people installed competing versions simultaneously.  I have had people
install a manual installation of java placing symlinks here and there
but never got it working.  Later they thought that installing the
package version would "fix" their problem.  But the existence of their
manually created symlinks prevented the package's alternatives from
being able to be automatically installed.  It looks to the system as
if there is a manual override already in place!

Here is a previous rant on the subject that I think is a good
introduction to using the Debian alternatives system.

  http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2002/08/msg02808.html

> Thanks - now onto symlinking. Do I have to do this with Konqueror, 
> Galeon, and Opera as well as Iceweasel?

It should be completely automatic.  Assuming the 'auto' designation.
You can adjust these using update-alternatives.  Try these:

  update-alternatives --display mozilla-javaplugin.so

  update-alternatives --auto mozilla-javaplugin.so

Bob



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