Installing RPMs

[Anthony Johnson]

Hi,

I decided to upgrade from Fedora Core 1 to Fedora Core 2 just over two
months ago.  I have tried to install various RPMs with no success.  For
example, if I double click j2re-1.4.2-8.1.fc2.dag.i586.rpm, I get "?
There is no action associated with j2re-1.4.2-8.1.fc2.dag.i586.rpm." 
The file-roller is not activated.

If I go to the command line, become super user, change to the
appropriate directory, I type rpm j2re-1.4.2-8.1.fc2.dag.i586.rpm and
hit enter; an installation process appears to be occurring.  I type rpm
-q j2re-1.4.2-8.1.fc2.dag.i586.rpm.  I am told that it is not installed.

How do I diagnose the problem?  How do I remedy the situation?

I am a newbie who recently converted to Linux from Windows.