This tip is for those of us who attending the University of Phoenix and are running Linux: The ALEKS program in the Center for Mathematics Excellence does not support our OS! 
I tried installing the Java plugin while running Internet Explorer 6 through WINE, but it was not successful! Luckily, I was able to install the plugin and can now use ALEKS through Firefox, while in Ubuntu (I’m not sure if these instructions are distro specific, but they do work for Ubuntu 7.10).
ALEKS does have an article that covers Firefox 1.0 and Linux, though we need to change a few variables, here’s a step-by-step (if you need more detailed help, just post your question below):
- Make sure you have “Sun Java 6 Web Start” installed. Use apt-get or Synaptec to check.
- Download the ALEKS plugin: aleksPack10.jar (6.4M)
- Save the plugin into your Home directory:
/home/{YOURUSERNAME} - We need to find your Java plugin directory, open Terminal and type:
locate /lib/ext/ - Note the plugin location. For me, the output was:
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.03/jre/lib/ext/ - In Terminal, type the following (if you’re output from Step 5 was different, supplement it in Step 6):
cp aleksPack10.jar /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.03/jre/lib/ext/ - Restart Firefox
STUMBLED!
Thanks for the tutorial.
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Universities aren’t very Linux friendly are they? Mine’s weird… we have a Linux computer lab, but they didn’t think to have a tutorial on how to connect to the internet with Linux.
They have a tutorial for XP, Vista, and a couple Mac OSes, all of which use different authentication methods, apparently. And i think its a 2-layer authentication. So i tried using the ones listed for each OS, none of them worked. And I think it might have something to do with acquiring the certificate too :S meh. I guess I’ll just have to live with using Windows while at school.
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That’s cool that they actually have a Linux lab – are there no tech.’s there that can help?
no i don’t think so… but there might be. I just haven’t heard of any tech assistance on my campus. I’ll try to look around next sem. Or I’ll wait for someone to figure it out and just ask them.
I’m sure that someone in the campus IT department could help, give that a try!
Got it! Thanks for the info.
Im not seeing the need of installing it in the present but i find it informative.
Got it! Thanks:)
Nice stuff!
Great guide… this is exactly what I was looking for, I have a hard time trying to install the plugin but with your guide it’s all done
Thx
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Okay, it’s a little late, so I don’t think this will get replies, but I’m running Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid and I’ve successfully installed the ALEKS plugin with these same directions. However, when I get to ALEKS and log in, first a page pops up in a new tab saying “[url, usually a long one, consisting of hexidecimal code in pairs separated by % signs] cannot be found.” Then when I press “Back” or try to log in again, It comes up to ALEKS’s “Mozilla/Custom Ubuntu is not supported” page. I’m using the version of Firefox that came with my distro. I tried Kazehakase and something along the same lines happened. With Epiphany, the same thing happened but the error message was changed to “Firefox 3.0 for Unix/Linux is not supported.” If anyone could help, that’d be greatly appreciated.
Robby,
I don’t know if anything has changed with ALEKS as I’m all done with my math classes, but I would suggest wiping off Java from your machine and start fresh…
It shouldn’t have changed anything, but everywhere I look, nobody specifies the browser or distro version that they use. I tried wiping Java and then reinstalling it. *sigh*
Hey, I’m running Ubuntu 8.10, and I can’t get it to work with these instructions. Is there anything different I have to do? Much appreciated
These browsers identify themselves in the user agent string that is often not able to be changed. Kazehakase gives the user the ability to change the user agent string in it’s preferences. You must Google for an Internet Explorer user agent string and try swapping them out until you find one that works. All this is is a little hard-coded string in most browsers that tell which browser they’re using, what os they’re on, and what version of the browser.
The site just looks for that string and if it doesn’t find something like “Internet Explorer” or “Netscape”, it denies access and says it cannot support .
Sorry, the last sentence of the comment I left was modified and removed the vital section. It just denies access and then replies with something like, “*YOUR USER AGENT STRING* is not supported.”
I hope you guys understand it. :> Those that do web development know what I’m talking about… Some sites use this string to modify the html or css of the site to suit the browser. For example, Internet Explorer is known to have a few rendering issues with html. So most web designers parse the user agent string and load the appropriate css “fixes” for Internet Explorer if the user is using that browser.
Hope this all makes sense… best of luck
Hello from another university. The steps worked with Ubuntu 8.04, but I have to use it all alone in a browser (there are still many browser freezes) and refresh and refresh so it will let me insert answers. I got as far as Q.11 (of 25) on the basic skills test, and that was it. It is funny how there are system messages on the status bar with “death” and “bail” in them.
On a fresh Ubuntu 9.4 (Jaunty) install, it worked fine. # updatedb so that that # locate /lib/ext works.
# updatedb
# apt-get install sun-java6-plugin
i have 9.1 and i went through all the steps and had no luck