It seems that I'm having the same problem. I've been through almost the same steps as Justbill (I didn't download jre-1_5_0_04-linux-i586-rpm.bin, rather jre-1_5_0_04-linux-i586.bin without the "rpm"), my symbolic link is highlighted in blue, but when I go to "about: plugins" in Firefox, all it says is:
Default Plugin
File name: libnullplugin.so
The default plugin handles plugin data for mimetypes and extensions that are not specified and facilitates downloading of new plugins.
MIME Type Description Suffixes Enabled
* All types .* No
I am using Firefox version 1.0.4 on FC4. If someone can help, I will be grateful. I'm new to linux, so don't be afraid to speak as if I were a child.
Thank you for everything so far,
Lynn