Edit: I still like vnc, I imagine the instructions and links may be a little different now. I do not use KDE or Firefox on AIX anymore.
Originally posted November 12, 2007 on AIXchange
I’ve been using HMC version 7 for a while now. Recently I loaded a console window directly on my AIX desktop. I like having a desktop session running on AIX or Linux. I can close it down, go to another location, fire it back up and pick up from where I left off. I explained this in a previous article.
I was running VNC. (You can download the rpm here or load it from your AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications CD.)
Once I loaded VNC and ran vncserver, I decided to run the KDE desktop rather than the default tab window manager (twm) desktop. From my Toolbox CD, I went to the ezinstall/ppc directory and loaded the kde3.all rpms.
/aixcd/toolbox/ezinstall/ppc # ls
app-dev crypto.base gnome.apps kde3.all kde3.opt
base desktop.base gnome.base kde3.base
After installing and running startkde, I had a desktop that I liked.
Then I decided to load Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.6 for AIX from the CD. It installed fine, and I could bring up my HMC login screen with no problem. However, when I tried to open a console window on one of my partitions, I was warned that I needed to install the appropriate plug-in to handle Java. I clicked to download the appropriate plug-in, but Firefox had no idea what to do, and the documentation on Sun’s Web site wasn’t helpful. Fortunately, the documentation that was included with Firefox for AIX was.
The pertinent information for getting your plugin working with Firefox on AIX is available at /usr/mozilla/firefox. Read the README or README.HTML files.
Using the Java Plug-In
The AIX Java Plug-in for Firefox for AIX is included in Java 5 or later. This version of Java runs on AIX 5L and chrp system architecture only. Run bootinfo -p to find out a system’s architecture.
Downloading the Java Runtime Environment — Download the Java installp images.
1. Open http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/jdk/
2. Select AIX–Downloads from Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE)
3. Select Java 5 64-bit and sign in.
4. You need these files: Java 5 and Java5_64.sdk.tar.gz.
Installing the Java plug-in–These installp filesets must be installed: Java 5 and Java5_64.sdk. Use SMIT, WebSM, or installp to install the filesets.
Configure the Java plug-in–For Java 5, the Java plug-in file is /usr/java5_64/jre/bin/libjavaplugin_oji.so. If it doesn’t already exist, create this link:
ln -s /usr/java5_64/jre/bin/libjavaplugin_oji.so \
/usr/mozilla/firefox/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so
As an alternative, the plug-in can be linked into the user’s .mozilla directory:
ln -s /usr/java5_64/jre/bin/libjavaplugin_oji.so \
$HOME/.mozilla/plugins/libjavaplugin_oji.so
Note: Only one version of the Java plug-in can be used at a given time.
Verifying the Java plug-in- In Firefox fox AIX, “about:plugins” in the address bar should show the Java plug-in information.
With Firefox running inside my VNC session on AIX, I was able to connect to my HMC, start my console window and start running some NIM installs. In the middle of the installs, I could disconnect from VNC, then reconnect later to check on the progress.
In the past I had a similar setup running on Linux, but this configuration running on AIX suits my current needs.