Java plugin choices for ubuntu 8.10

[David Fox]

hello list

I have been running ubuntu for a while and I'm a bit confused on all
the different choices for getting java to work in a browser such as
firefox. I thought i had it working, but in going to an automated
testing site just now that requires java plugin, it tells me that it
is trying to load the applet, and that the applet fails to initialize.
I thought I had this working.

If I go to the java.com test page, I see the moving icon so I guess it
is working, but still I am stymied.

Here is what I have that is installed :

fox at newbox:~$ aptitude search java | grep ^i
i   icedtea-java7-plugin            - Java plugin based on IcedTea and gcjwebplu
i A java-common                     - Base of all Java packages
i   java-gcj-compat                 - Java runtime environment using GIJ
i A java-gcj-compat-headless        - Java runtime environment using GIJ (headle
i A libaccess-bridge-java           - Java Access Bridge for GNOME
i A libbcel-java                    - Analyze, create, and manipulate (binary) J
i A libjaxp1.3-java                 - Java XML parser and transformer APIs (DOM,
i A libjaxp1.3-java-gcj             - Java XML parser and transformer APIs (DOM,
i A libjline-java                   - Java library for handling console input
i A liblog4j1.2-java                - Logging library for java
i A liblog4j1.2-java-gcj            - Logging library for java (native code)
i A libmx4j-java                    - An open source implementation of the JMX(T
i A libregexp-java                  - regular expression library for Java
i A libxalan2-java                  - XSL Transformations (XSLT) processor in Ja
i A libxalan2-java-gcj              - XSL Transformations (XSLT) processor in Ja
i A libxerces2-java                 - Validating XML parser for Java with DOM le
i A libxerces2-java-gcj             - Validating XML parser for Java with DOM le
i   openoffice.org-java-common      - OpenOffice.org office suite Java support a
i A sun-java6-bin                   - Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (
i   sun-java6-jre                   - Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (
i A tzdata-java                     - time zone and daylight-saving time data fo

That seems to be a bit much. Why do I have a gcj, an icedtea and a sun java?

Another site seems to work (a crossword puzzle site) so I guess it has
to be the site I am trying to connect to.

Will keep trying.