Linux: 'Remember password' checkbox missing in the authentication dialog

Here is my scenario:
- Applet deployed on a server that uses basic authentication
- User opens the applet in the browser.
- The Java plug-in presents an authentication dialog with a Basic Auth scheme
- User inputs correct user and pass pair and clicks ok. After awhile the dialog is back again asking for the same thing and that happens for each and every request made by the applet back to the server. It seems that some of the requests even fail, because sometimes not all resources are loaded: the jnlp, or a css, ...
- User can't click 'Remember password' checkbox because it's missing

Please note, that in Windows the 'Remember password' checkbox is there and the resources are loaded properly.
In opposite, under ubuntu I can't get the applet to work due to this issue