‘esmith’ got Java applets working in Opera 7.5 thisaway:

1) mkdir ~/j4o
2) cd ~/j4o
3) ln -s /usr/local/jdk1.4.1/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm.so libjvm.so
4) ln -s /usr/local/jdk1.4.1/jre/lib/i386/client/libjvm_g.so libjvm_g.so
5) ln -s libjvm.so libjava.so
6) ln -s libjvm.so libawt.so
7) Add to the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH the values:
/usr/local/jdk1.4.1/jre/lib/i386/client
/usr/local/jdk1.4.1/jre/lib/i386/
Then as root and at your own risk

9) cd /usr/src/lib/libc_r
10) make LDFLAGS=’-lc -L/usr/lib’
11) cp /usr/obj/usr/src/world_i386/usr/lib/libc_r.so.4 ~/j4o
12) strip ~/j4o/libc_r.so.4
13) Set Java path in Opera -> Tools -> Preferences -> Multimedia to
/home/your_account/j4o
14) validate Java path
15) Try to load an applet