is 64 bit ready for primetime yet?

[Paul Lemmons]

Paul Lemmons wrote:
> When Natty comes out I am planning on doing a clean install. My first 
> on this particular machine since Feisty. I am considering the 64 bit 
> version. The machine has more than 4GB of ram so I have been 
> successfully running the pae version without any real hiccups.  It has 
> been a long time since I considered "real" 64 bit and was wondering 
> has it matured to the point where it is as smooth, application and 
> stability wise, as the 32 bit version? In particular: Firefox? Flash? 
> Java? VMWare Workstation?
>
I really appreciate the flood responses to this. If I am reading them 
all correctly I hear that 64bit is stable with the exception of flash 
which does not get high marks on the 32 bit version either. There is a 
beta version of flash that appears to be less unstable. All else sounds 
like they should work as expected.

To try things out I installed Kubuntu-64 natty beta1 in a VM. It looks 
fine. The only gotcha so far is that I can't find sun-java6. It does not 
appear in any of the repositories. I might be able to live without 
stable flash but I really need sun-java for some of the apps I have to 
use. Does anybody know if this is coming to the repo's or if there is a 
PPA for it?