You can test your connection at the link listed below. You need a java-enabled web browser for it to work.

DSL Reports.com - Speedtest

My speed: 1974 kbps download, 513 kbps upload on Bell Sympatico highspeed.

Its worth doing a test from time to time as sometimes your service isn't running as fast as it should be and this can be an indicator of line or other kinds of problems.

If you notice your speed seems a bit on the slow side, try it again in a couple of hours as sometimes your service is slow simply because of heavy traffic on the net.

quote:

---

So does this work with Linux? I looked at this site with Firefox and Opera and didn't see the start button. I have no intention of installing their tools. So, what's the trick?

---

It does work with Linux, but you have to have Java enabled.

Actually it won't work with M$ "Java Virtual Machine" in IE, you have to have the actual Java runtime component installed.

I vaguely remember someone telling me about another test site, but can't off-hand remember where it is.

[ 15 October 2005: Message edited by: radiorahim ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by radiorahim:
It does work with Linux, but you have to have Java enabled.

---

cd/usr/local

Output:

bash: cd: /usr/java: No such file or directory

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cougyr:

I do, but still don't see their button. The
CNET test and Speakeasy test do not require any downloads.

---

There must be some problem with your java installation then. Do you have the java plugin setup in Firefox?

What happens when you go to a site like this (enter site) that uses Java for its navigation?

http://bethuneinstitute.org

You should be seeing buttons on the left side of the screen used to navigate around this site. If you don't then your java installation is screwed.

quote:

---

Originally posted by VanLuke:
I did as per instructions on the site ( I copied/pasted, so there's no typo):

cd/usr/local

Output:

bash: cd: /usr/java: No such file or directory

Do I have to create the directory and if so how?

---

Open a terminal and do ...

whereis java

if it doesn't come up with a result then you don't have java installed. If it does, then it'll tell you where it is located.

I just did the test on my Win 2K machine and *if* I was a jealous person I'd be jealous of rbil's connection. His XP box is twice as fast as mine. Switching off ZoneAlarm gave virtually identical results.

Thanks

quote:

---

[lu@localhost ~]$ whereis java
java:
[lu@localhost ~]$

---

???

When I click on the test in Mandriva it tells me to get the plugin

???

[ 15 October 2005: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

I'm not that familiar with Mandriva 2005LE, so I don't know whether you can get java through urpmi or not? If not, then you'll have to go and get it from sun.

Maybe I should take this time to explain a bit about how Linux's locate command works, as it is THE tool to use to find things on your computer.

First, you want to make sure that locate's database is up-to-date. You can do this by ...

su to root
slocate -u

This will cause locate to scan your whole hard drive and update the updated.db. Once updated, then a command like this ...

(root not necessary)
locate java

will pump out a long list of all the places on your hard drive where the word java is contained within a filename or directory. It is VERY fast and there's nothing in Windoze to compare. Certainly not it's "indexed" file system. :-)

Want to find out where firefox's plugin directory is located? ...

locate firefox/plugins

it should produce something like this ...

locate firefox/plugins
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/flashplayer.xpt
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libflashplayer.so
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/mplayerplug-in.so

So that's telling you that on my system libjavaplugin_oji.so is in firefox's plugin directory. In other words, I have the java plugin installed in firefox.

But it gets more interesting than that, because libjavaplugin_oji.so isn't REALLY there. It's actually a symbolic link to the that library file. Let's see that ...

ls -l /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 59 Oct 12 17:01 /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so -> /usr/share/jre1.5.0_02/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so

Doing a ls on that, shows that the .so file is linked from elsewhere. And that is where that java library file is really sitting on your hard drive.

I'm doing this from a Debian distro, so directories might be different on your distro. But this should give you an idea how to track down this kind of stuff.

Should you need to link the .so after you've installed java, check out ...

man ln

to see how the link command works.

HTH.

quote:

---

Originally posted by rbil:
locate firefox/plugins

it should produce something like this ...

locate firefox/plugins
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/flashplayer.xpt
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libflashplayer.so
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/mplayerplug-in.so

---

All you have to do is cd to your firefox plugin directory and then create a symbolic link in that directory to the libjavaplugin_oji.so library that comes with java.

Assuming your directories are the same as mine (and they certainly might not be, as some distros deviate in terms of where they choose to put things), you'd do the following:

cd /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins
ln -s /usr/share/jre1.5.0_02/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so

Then you should see the libjavaplugin_oji.so as a symbolic link in your plugins directory.

That's all that is required to get a plugin to work in firefox. If firefox is open, you need to close it and restart it before the plugin will be recognized.

quote:

---

Originally posted by rbil:
Cougyr,

All you have to do is cd to your firefox plugin directory and then create a symbolic link in that directory to the libjavaplugin_oji.so library that comes with java.

---

This package is not the same as java-common as far as I understand because they are listed a separate packages.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cougyr:

So, where did you get that? I'm running Debian and have java-common. I downloaded
jre-1_5_0_01-linux-i586.bin and opened it, but see no libjavaplugin_oji.so. Is there a Debian way to do this?

---

I would think that library plugin file must come within what you downloaded from sun? What does a ...

locate libjavaplugin_oji.so

tell you? It should be found and will give you the exact path you'll need to use to create the link.

quote:

---

Originally posted by rbil:
Debian now provides what you'd otherwise have to go to sun and pick up. You should find java 1.5.0-02 as a package.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by rbil:
How do I tell? All I know (just started using Debian ) is that I'm using testing and it is part of the non-free packages.Cheers.

---

In any case, here are the instructions from Sun:

nstallation of Self-Extracting Binary
Use these instructions if you want to use the self-extracting binary file to install the JDK. If you want to install RPM packages instead, see Installation of RPM File.

1. Download and check the download file size to ensure that you have downloaded the full, uncorrupted software bundle.

You can download to any directory you choose; it does not have to be the directory where you want to install the JDK.

Before you download the file, notice its byte size provided on the download page on the web site. Once the download has completed, compare that file size to the size of the downloaded file to make sure they are equal.

2. Make sure that execute permissions are set on the self-extracting binary.

Run this command:
chmod +x jdk-1_5_0_-linux-i586.bin

3. Change directory to the location where you would like the files to be installed.

The next step installs the JDK into the current directory.

4. Run the self-extracting binary.

Execute the downloaded file, prepended by the path to it. For example, if the file is in the current directory, prepend it with "./" (necessary if "." is not in the PATH environment variable):

./jdk-1_5_0_-linux-i586.bin

The binary code license is displayed, and you are prompted to agree to its terms.

The JDK files are installed in a directory called jdk1.5.0_ in the current directory. Follow this link to see its directory structure. The JDK documentation is a separate download.

Note about Root Access: Unbundling the software automatically creates a directory called jdk1.5.0_. Note that if you choose to install the JDK into system-wide location such as /usr/local, you must first become root to gain the necessary permissions. If you do not have root access, simply install the JDK into your home directory, or a subdirectory that you have permission to write to.

Note about Overwriting Files: If you unpack the software in a directory that contains a subdirectory named jdk1.5.0_, the new software overwrites files of the same name in that jdk1.5.0_ directory. Please be careful to rename the old directory if it contains files you would like to keep.

quote:

---

Originally posted by rbil:
[QB].

First, you want to make sure that locate's database is up-to-date. You can do this by ...

su to root
slocate -u

---

I did this

quote:

---

locate java

will pump out a long list of all the places on your hard drive where the word java is contained within a filename or directory.

---

I did this and there was a long list

quote:

---

Want to find out where firefox's plugin directory is located? ...

locate firefox/plugins

it should produce something like this ...

locate firefox/plugins
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/flashplayer.xpt
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libflashplayer.so
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/mplayerplug-in.so

---

It did this:

[lu@localhost ~]$ locate firefox/plugins
[lu@localhost ~]$

quote:

---

It did this:

[lu@localhost ~]$ locate firefox/plugins
[lu@localhost ~]$

So what did I do wrong?

---

You didn't do anything wrong. You just don't have any plugins installed yet in firefox. You'll need to follow those instructions I left earlier and link that .so file into that plugins directory.

Added:
What does ...

locate libjavaplugin_oji.so

output?

Cheers.

[ 17 October 2005: Message edited by: rbil ]

First I entered the top line only, then all 3 lines. I just don't know what I am doing here.

The output from both:

quote:

---

[lu@localhost ~]$ locate libjavaplugin_oji.so
[lu@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost lu]# ls -l /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so
ls: /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so: No such file or directory
[root@localhost lu]# ls -l /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so
ls: /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so: No such file or directory
[root@localhost lu]# lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 59 Oct 12 17:01 /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so -> /usr/share/jre1.5.0_02/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
bash: /usr/share/jre1.5.0_02/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so: No such fileor directory
[root@localhost lu]#

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by rbil:
I would advise against doing anything in /tmp as that is really reserved for the system.

---

Well, yes and no. One can drop a Deb package in there and do dpkg -i [package.deb] and it will send everything to the proper places. The next time you reboot, /tmp is cleared of anything that isn't needed.

quote:

---

[lu@localhost ~]$ locate libjavaplugin_oji.so

---

If locate cannot find libjavaplugin_oji.so, then you don't have the JRE installed. You need to go to sun.com and download the latest JRE from there.

In a previous post I copied the instructions from Sun on how to install java on your system. It involves downloading the bin file, moving it to an accessible directory, like /usr/share and chmod'ing it to make it an excutable. Then you run that file which is a self-extracting archive file.

Once all the java files are extracted, you then do the link command I stated within firefox's plugin directory to get the java plugin working in firefox.

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free

deb http://www.morphix.org/debian/ ./

http://www.vobcopy.org/mirror/elive/pool/main/j/java/

quote:

---

Originally posted by rbil:
[QB].

In a previous post I copied the instructions from Sun on how to install java on your system. It involves downloading the bin file, moving it to an accessible directory, like /usr/share and chmod'ing it to make it an excutable. Then you run that file which is a self-extracting archive file.

---

I am in no postion to doubt that but can't find this anywhere above.

In any case the instructions at the Sun site are easy to find and I read them days ago.

I downloaded the file to file:/home/lu but I have no idea how to move it to the location you mentionned. The message I get is:

Access denied
Could not write to 'usr/share/[file name]

My guess is that I need to to that as root but how I would move it in a terminal from one location to another is beyond me.

It would be kind of easy to give up but I'm sure I need to know this for many occasions.

Time to do some reading in the book I bought.

now you have a gui file manager being run as root.

in Konqueror, Window ... split Left/Right

now you have 2 windows in Konqueror

on one side navigate to /usr/share
on the other navigate to where you downloaded the bin file from sun.

drag and drop the file over :-)

right-click on the file ... properties ... make it executable

close konqueror so you're back in the terminal where you moved the bin file to and run the bin by typing ...

./jre-1_5_0_01-linux-i586.bin

... and hitting ENTER

this will decompress the bin within /usr/share into its own directory.

start konqueror again by typing konqueror at the prompt. (remember you're still root)

find the firefox/plugins directory and then close konqueror. you should now be in the directory at the command prompt.

now you're ready to go and create the link. If you don't want to deal with a link, simply copy that library file into the plugin directory. will do the same as a link except use up a bit more hard drive space. :-)

Cheers.

[ 17 October 2005: Message edited by: rbil ]

[ 17 October 2005: Message edited by: rbil ]

thanks for repeating that instruction of how to be su in Konqueror

May I add that my book is starting to pay off and I succeeded (after some bumbling) to move the file in Terminal (before reading your post) to /usr/share and it's (nicely) indicated in white while almost all other entries are in blue.

In passing, my guess would bu that config and firmware is in a greenish tone because they cannot be edited. Is this correct?

Why though is usb.ids in the same tone as the downloaded java file?

echo $LS_COLORS

I have no idea how colors are defined on your system. This is not necessarily standard across distros. Here, I don't have any colors turned on as I've chosen a different schema.

added: OK, I've turned on coloring on ls. blue would be directories, green would be executable files, white would be text files, cyan would be linked files.

Cheers.

[ 17 October 2005: Message edited by: rbil ]

But I can't find the Firefox folder, not that I didn't try

quote:

---

[lu@localhost ~]$ find Firefox
find: Firefox: No such file or directory
[lu@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost lu]# find Firefox
find: Firefox: No such file or directory
[root@localhost lu]# find Mozilla
find: Mozilla: No such file or directory

---

edited to add:

Just remembered this command but it doesn't get me anywhere either

[root@localhost lu]# whereis Firefox
Firefox:
[root@localhost lu]# cd Firefox
bash: cd: Firefox: No such file or directory
[root@localhost lu]#

[ 18 October 2005: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by rbil:

./jre-1_5_0_01-linux-i586.bin

---

Just wanted to point out for anybody else who might need this that there is a typo in the file name.

It is:

Linux RPM in self-extracting file:
jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586-rpm.bin

Linux self-extracting file:
jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.bin

So it depends on which one you want to use and whether your distro will work with RPMs or not. I'm guessing that the RPM would probably automate such things as installing the plugin, but I'm not sure. Maybe someone else can confirm?

find starts from the directory you're in and searches down the directory structure

I prefer using locate as it is much quicker and looks within a database as I've explained earlier.

locate firefox

whereis firefox will also work.
whereis Firefox will fail, as the spelling is wrong

quote:

---

Originally posted by rbil:
This looks like where java is picked up by my system ...

http://www.vobcopy.org/mirror/elive/pool/main/j/java/

Cheers.

---

Thanks for that. I didn't need to change my /apt/sources.list. I just downloaded java_1.5.0-02_i386.deb and did "dpkg -i java_1.5.0-02_i386.deb" Easy. Now Firefox can see the Java buttons.

Curious though: there is still no java in firefox/plugins and locate libjavaplugin_oji.so does not find it. Firefox must be finding java via another route.

I'm a refugee from Red Hat/Mandrake. After finding Debian I pretty much left the old-fashioned package manipulation behind. I can still do it, if I work at it, but I don't like it. I have converted rpm's to deb's, but I don't do it often and have to look it up.

quote:

---

Curious though: there is still no java in firefox/plugins and locate libjavaplugin_oji.so does not find it. Firefox must be finding java via another route.

---

I find that hard to believe Cougyr. I can't think of any other way that firefox/mozilla recognizes plugins. Did you update locate's database prior to trying locate? Your system might run a cron job once a week to do this. But if you just installed java, the database wouldn't be updated yet. Try updating it and then report back whether locate finds the file:

su to root
slocate -u

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cougyr:
[QB]

I'm a refugee from Red Hat/Mandrake. After finding Debian I pretty much left the old-fashioned package manipulation behind.

---

Does that mean that Debian based distros are easier to learn?

I copied it here and it is obviously wrong; or I copied the wrong file.

/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2/plugins

Or should I have copied it here?

/usr/lib/libkjava.so.1.0.0

I copied the 'rpm package file'

Should I have copied the 'shell script'?

I clicked on get install and got the message that Firefox is installing, then was finished installing, the plugin.

Asked me to restart but the plugin still doesn't work.

[ 18 October 2005: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

ls -l /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2/plugins

show?

quote:

---

Does that mean that Debian based distros are easier to learn?

---

Software installation might be easier with Debian, but everything else is much harder compared to Mandriva. None of those fancy GUI config tools like Mandriva offers. Commandline is a necessity with Debian.

quote:

---

Originally posted by VanLuke:
Does that mean that Debian based distros are easier to learn?

---

I don't know about learning, but it's easier to use; at least for me. People differ on that one.

Do you know of a GUI interface for Debian for example to start and stop the services running? Like apache, mysql, samba, etc.

Cheers.

[ 18 October 2005: Message edited by: rbil ]

jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.rpm*

and

libnullplugin.so

are in green colour.

Thanks

[ 18 October 2005: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

You've moved jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.rpm to that directory. That isn't going to give you the plugin doing that.

The RPM file is the installation file for java. You need to use the rpm command to have that package install.

See man rpm for help using rpm.

You need to be root to run rpm.

Command would be (to get a verbose listing of activity as package is installed):

rpm -iv jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.rpm

That rpm file can be located anywhere and should go and put the files where they're supposed to be. I'm guessing it will also build the link in plugins, but that's only a guess, as I haven't installed java using a rpm.

quote:

---

[lu@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost lu]# ls -l /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2/plugins
total 15928
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16265316 Aug 26 21:34 jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.rpm*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18460 Apr 5 2005 libnullplugin.so*
[root@localhost lu]# ls -l /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2/plugins
total 15928
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16265316 Aug 26 21:34 jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.rpm*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18460 Apr 5 2005 libnullplugin.so*
[root@localhost lu]# rpm -iv jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.rpm
error: open of jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.rpm failed: No such file or directory
[root@localhost lu]#

---

quote:

---

What is going on?
The file *is* there!

---

Yeh, but YOU aren't there. You have to be in the same directory as the rpm file before you can deal with it using the rpm command like you tried, or else put the total path to the file in the rpm commandline.

quote:

---

Originally posted by rbil:

Yeh, but YOU aren't there. You have to be in the same directory as the rpm file before you can deal with it using the rpm command like you tried, or else put the total path to the file in the rpm commandline.

Cheers.

---

I had tried to get there by using cd and the full name inc path

Now I went there and it seems I definitely got there and executed the command you told me to use.

What did I get as answer?

It's already installed!

Ouch!

However when I go to the Bethune site I'm told that the plugins are missing.

You once praised me for not giving up (nice of you) but the way I'm feeling now is pretty close to it.

quote:

---

[root@localhost usr]# cd /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.2/plugins
[root@localhost plugins]# rpm -iv jre-1_5_0_05-linux-i586.rpm
Preparing packages for installation...
package jre-1.5.0_05-fcs is already installed
[root@localhost plugins]#

---

http://tinypic.com/erd69t.png

http://tinypic.com/erd5y1.png

[ 18 October 2005: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

So my 550 Mhz Pentium 3 running Mandriva is almost as fast as my 2.4 gig Pentium 4 running Win 2k. (Just a few kb difference, 1264 vs 1277 download speed)

http://tinypic.com/erk742.png

[ 19 October 2005: Message edited by: VanLuke ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by VanLuke:
What a long and difficult birth that was!

---

quote:

---

Thank you and I sure hope it will be easier as this took days.

---

I installed Java using Easy URPMI on my Mandrake 10.1 notebook. Perhaps we can walk you through Easy URPMI on another day.

You'll find your test results will vary a bit at different times of the day, and sometimes there seems to be cross-border issues with sites in the U.S.

radiorahim, if I understood rbil correctly this installation did not work with urpmi.

It would be nice if you did walk me through this some time in the future. In particular I would like to install an app that lets me record sound input from my stereo. The sound recorder in my version of Mandriva crashes every time I open it and I haven't been able to work out how (or for that matter if) it can be done in audacity.

quote:

---

Originally posted by VanLuke:
In particular I would like to install an app that lets me record sound input from my stereo. The sound recorder in my version of Mandriva crashes every time I open it and I haven't been able to work out how (or for that matter if) it can be done in audacity.

---

VanLuke,

If you have a problem with an application starting, you need to try and figure out what the problem might be with it. If you open a terminal and try to run the application from the command prompt by typing in the application's name there, many times error will be displayed that might give a hint as to what the problem could be.

Another place to look is in the error logs. You can try something like this (su as root first):

tail /var/log/syslog

This will display the end of the syslog file which should contain error alerts if viewed just after trying to run the app. In fact the tail command will continue displaying in realtime and is a useful way to keep an eye on various logs where you want to see what is happening as you work on something.

Posting any error messages here that you find with either method might give us a chance to help you fix the problem.