Installing Sun's Java

[ Update: problem solved ]

It appears that at one time Sun's Java 5 was available for installation via apt-get/Synaptic (sun-java5-* packages). This no longer appears to be the case and I suspect it's related to recent problems with the terms of Sun's Java license.

Therefore, to install the JRE/JDK one must resort to the standard download and installation process from Sun's web-site. For example, to install the Sun's Java runtime environment (JRE 5.0 Update 7) do the following:

1. download the self-extracting bin file
2. make executable
   chmod +x jre-1_5_0_07-linux-i586.bin
   
3. run the executable (requires acceptance of the terms of the license)
   sudo ./jre-1_5_0_07-linux-i586.bin
   
4. move the extracted file-tree to a suitable location
   sudo mv jre1.5.0_07/ /opt
   
5. configure the browser plug-in, e.g. for Firefox:
   cd /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/
   sudo ln -s /opt/jre1.5.0_07/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
6. set your JAVA_HOME environment variable and put it into your PATH variable e.g. in $HOME/.bash_profile add
   JAVA_HOME=/opt/jre1.5.0_07
   PATH="${PATH}:${JAVA_HOME}/bin"
   
7. To run the Control Panel
   ControlPanel