java games problem

hello everyone, i'm having a problem running any java games, mainly runescape but i can't get any other games to work either, everytime i try an error message appears saying error loading applet, i had problems installing the java plugin with mozilla as is but i'm not sure how to correct this problem, the plugins i have under mozilla are:
chris@chris-desktop:~$ cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
chris@chris-desktop:/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins$ ls
flashplugin-alternative.so libtotem-gmp-plugin.xpt
libgcjwebplugin.so libtotem-mully-plugin.so
libjavaplugin.so libtotem-mully-plugin.xpt
libtotem-basic-plugin.so libtotem-narrowspace-plugin.so
libtotem-basic-plugin.xpt libtotem-narrowspace-plugin.xpt
libtotem-gmp-plugin.so
chris@chris-desktop:/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins$
anyone see a reason why java wouldn't work?

So idea what it is that you drop down there.
But is there a JVM installed?

Cheers,
Robin

i'm pretty sure jvm is installed i've tried and retried like 20 times

Pretty sure?
Or have you tested it with a JVM Testers page?

What Linux distribution are you using and what version of java do you have installed?

i'm using ubuntu 7.10 and i'm not really sure if java is installed is there anyway i can find that out? also everytime i install java and flash and all those plugins they are saved to desktop, is this the reason why all the symbolic links i create are broken, if this is true can someone tell me what i need to do to succesfully install and configure java and flash