ive tried for 2 days now. im trying to install java. i tried following the instructions in the java site but it still didnt work. i ran the install package in the terminal and it created a file in the root folder. i remember i got it working in ubuntu one time but im pretty sure it is diffrent in fedora and i dont even remember how i did it anyway.

so; what steps did you complete and what went wrong on the last step?

well i tried again and this is what i did. i put the rpm.bin file in usr/java i changed the permissions so it can be executed and i ran it in the terminal and it came up in with the License Agreement then it made jre-1_5_0_11-linux-i586.rpm and when i opened that it said /usr/java/jre-1_5_0_11-linux-i586.rpm is already installed.

i dont know if that means java is already installed but when i do the test on the java site it says it isnt installed.

rpm.bin is just a downloadable chuck
/usr/java/jre-1_5_0_11-linux-i586.rpm is the installer package

... it said /usr/java/jre-1_5_0_11-linux-i586.rpm is already installed
this is from the RPM installer point of view. Try to find the documentation,
as I recall, you need an environment variable to point to the RTE location.

You are mixing up things.

On the command line, run the command "java". If it runs, you have Java installed. The Firefox/Opera/Konqueror/whwtever Java plugin that would let you run Java applets on websites is a separate thing to install.