Ubuntu Java Applets

When surfing websites, there are often times when you come across Java Applets. In Firefox, it will ask you to download a plugin. This downloads something called IcedTea.

Well, apparently, it doesn't quite work with a 64-bit machine. I'm not sure about 32-bit machines, but at least on my machine (a 64-bit), it doesn't work. I finally came across a bug that was reported on Ubuntu... and luckily, a fix!

>sudo apt-get build-dep icedtea-java7-plugin
> sudo apt-get -b source icedtea-java7-plugin icedtea-java7-bin icedtea-java7-jre icedtea-java7-jdk
> sudo dpkg -i icedtea-java7-*deb

Word of warning though, this takes a very long time. And by very, I really do mean VERY. After you execute the second line, go for lunch or take a nap. Hopefully it'll be done by the time you get back ;)

After executing the last line, I got a software update message from Ubuntu for the IcedTea plugin. I hit install, and it updated everything for me, and everything works.

To test if it worked, try this:

www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml


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