Originally Posted by http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_core_4_installation_notes.html#Java

Java:

* The official Fedora Core 4 Release Notes state: "Fedora Core 4 users are advised not to use the Java RPM provided by Sun. It contains Provides that conflict with names used in packages provided as part of Fedora Core 4. Because of this, Sun Java might disappear from an installed system during package upgrade operations. Fedora Core 4 users should use either the RPM from jpackage.org or manually install the Sun Java tarball into /opt. Sun Java 1.5+ is recommended for stability purposes." In order to accomplish this open Firefox, go to http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp, click on Download JRE 5.0 Update 5, click the radio button to accept the license agreement, under "Linux Platform - J2SE(TM) Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 5" click on "Linux self-extracting file", to download jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.bin (save to disk). This should save the file to your home folder. If it saves the file to your desktop instead go to your desktop and drag the file into your "Home" folder. (Left mouse click on the file and drag it on top of your "Home" folder while holding the left mouse button down. Then release the mouse button.)

* You should run up2date or "yum update" as root as described above to update your kernel and then reboot your machine before you proceed with this step, then open a terminal. Type:

su

Hit enter. Type your root password. Hit enter. Type:

mv *.bin /opt

Hit enter. Type:

cd /opt

Hit enter. Type:

chmod +x *-linux-i586.bin

Hit enter. Type:

./*.bin

Hit enter. Hold the enter key down until the yes/no line appears to allow you to agree to the license agreement. Type "yes" and hit enter. Wait for the installation to complete. Type:

rm *.bin

Hit enter. Type "y" and hit enter. Type:

su -

Hit enter. This gives you root privileges and also puts you in the /root directory. Type:

ln -s /opt/jre1.5.0_05/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so

(Note that by default Firefox looks in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins for its plugins. If you have trouble with your plugins in Firefox you could substitute "firefox-1.0.7" or your most recent firefox directory name in place of "mozilla" in the above command.) Hit enter. Close the terminal. Restart Firefox to enable the java plugin. You could go to http://www.dslreports.com/stest?loc=97 and click the start button to test your java plugin installation.

* If you wish to run Java applications such as JAlbum or Azureus for bittorrent and you have installed the Sun J2SE JRE as described above, open a terminal and type:

su -

Hit enter. Type your root password. Hit enter. Type:

gedit /etc/profile.d/java.sh

Hit enter. In gedit type these lines:

export J2RE_HOME=/opt/jre1.5.0_05
export PATH=$J2RE_HOME/bin:$PATH

Be sure to enter a carriage return after these lines. Click on the "save" icon in gedit and exit gedit. In the terminal (which should still be open) type:

source /etc/profile.d/java.sh

Hit enter. Type:

which java

Hit enter. You should see:

/opt/jre1.5.0_05/bin/java

Type:

/usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /opt/jre1.5.0_05/bin/java 2

Hit enter. Type:

/usr/sbin/alternatives --config java

Hit enter. You should see:

There are 2 programs which provide 'java'.

Selection Command
-----------------------------------------------

*+ 1 /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.4.2-gcj/bin/java
2 /opt/jre1.5.0_05/bin/java

Enter to keep the current selection[+], or type selection number:

Type:

2

Hit enter. Type:

/usr/sbin/alternatives --display java

Hit enter. You should see:

java - status is manual.
link currently points to /opt/jre1.5.0_05/bin/java
...

You should now be able to install and run Java applications.