Preliminaries
These instructions are meant to provide reference for the average
installation of the Java Plug-in for operation with machines running
Netscape Communicator. We provide basic instructions for:
If your case does not fall under one of these then please consult one
of the following sources for help:
What you will need
Before you start the installation, you will need to download a version
of the Java Plug-in appropriate for your machine. This can be found at
http://java.sun.com/products/plugin.
At the time of writing this text, the most stable version of the
plug-in was version 1.1.2. A more recent version should work fine
though one should typically avoid deploying beta releases of software
across their network.
Installation For A Single-User Unix Account
-
Download:
We will assume that you have downloaded the appropriate
version of the Java Plug-in and named the distribution file
as "plugin_install.sh"
-
Decompression and installation:
You will need to extract the plug-in with the command
/bin/sh plugin_install.sh.
The installation script will prompt for you to agree to
licensing terms for the plug-in. Be sure to read these
carefully (though the plug-in is freely distributed to all
sites, there may be issues of which your organization needs
to be aware).
The installation script will install files in
$HOME/.netscape/.
-
Restarting your browser and confirming installation:
You will almost certainly need to restart your browser at
this point. After doing so you should check that the plug-in
was installed. For example, in Netscape Navigator, click on
the "Help" menu and select "About Plug-ins". You should see
an entry for the "Java(TM) Plug-in".
If this works, you can now try to use an applet which
requires the Java Plug-in. For instance, try
http://www.cavs.msstate.edu/research/isip/projects/speech/experiments/
If this does not work then you should first make sure that
you followed the instructions in this text and those on the
plug-in web-site carefully. Otherwise, contact the technical
support at
http://java.sun.com
or email
ies_help@cavs.msstate.edu
with problems specific to our applets.
Installation On A Unix Network
-
Download:
We will assume that you have downloaded the appropriate
version of the Java Plug-in and named the distribution file
as "plugin_install.sh".
-
Decompression and installation:
We will also assume that you want to install the plug-in into
PLUGIN_HOME and that your netscape distribution is installed
at NETSCAPE_HOME. We use
PLUGIN_HOME=NETSCAPE_HOME=/usr/local/netscape.
You will need to extract the plug-in with the following
commands:
-
export HOME=PLUGIN_HOME or setenv HOME PLUGIN_HOME
-
/bin/sh plugin_install.sh
This will create a ".netscape" directory under PLUGIN_HOME.
The installation script will prompt for you to agree to
licensing terms for the plug-in. Be sure to read these
carefully (though the plug-in is freely distributed to all
sites, there may be issues of which your organization needs
to be aware).
-
Modifying environment for the plug-in:
You will now need to tell Netscape where to find the
plug-in. This is done by setting two environment variables:
NPX_PLUGIN_PATH and JAVA_PLUGIN_PATH.
You can do this as part of a wrapper used to invoke
netscape or you can add this into the users' environment
(e.g. via the .bashrc or .cshrc files) by:
-
export NPX_PLUGIN_PATH="PLUGIN_HOME/.netscape/plugins:NETSCAPE_HOME/plugins"
-
export JAVA_PLUGIN_PATH="PLUGIN_HOME/.netscape/java"
For our setup this is:
-
export NPX_PLUGIN_PATH="/usr/local/netscape/.netscape/plugins:/usr/local/netscape/plugins"
-
export JAVA_PLUGIN_PATH="/usr/local/netscape/.netscape/java"
-
Restarting your login and confirming installation:
For these changes to take effect (particularly if you do not
invoke Netscape via a wrapper routine. otherwise you can try
just restarting Netscape first.) the users will need to log
out and log back in.
After doing so you can check that the plug-in was
installed. For example, in Netscape Navigator, click on the
"Help" menu and select "About Plug-ins". You should see an
entry for the "Java(TM) Plug-in.
If this works, you can now try to use an applet which requires
the Java Plug-in. For instance, try
http://www.cavs.msstate.edu/research/isip/projects/speech/experiments.
If this does not work then you should first make sure that
you followed the instructions in this text and those on the
plug-in web-site carefully. Otherwise, contact the technical
support at
http://java.sun.com
or email
ies_help@cavs.msstate.edu
with problems specific to our applets.
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