ter Smitten's

By default Ubuntu (10.04) doesn’t contain a 64 bit version of Sun’s (Official) Java plugin. Of course you can use the icedtea* plugin, but I noticed that not all Java applets (i.e. Webmin file manager) are working in it. That’s why I was eager to get the Official one working. This is how you do it:

Download the latest JRE (to ~/Downloads/mozilla):

wget 'http://javadl.sun.com/webapps/download/AutoDL?BundleId=...' -O jre-6u20-linux-x64.bin

Create the folder in which we’re going to install Java:

sudo mkdir -p /opt/java/64
cd /opt/java/64

Copy the installer to that folder, set it to be executable and install:

sudo cp ~/Downloads/mozilla/jre-6u20-linux-x64.bin .
sudo chmod 755 jre-6u20-linux-x64.bin
sudo ./jre-6u20-linux-x64.bin

Set it to be the default JRE:

sudo update-alternatives --install "/usr/bin/java" "java" "/opt/java/64/jre1.6.0_20/bin/java" 1
sudo update-alternatives --set java /opt/java/64/jre1.6.0_20/bin/java

java -version

It should say:

java version "1.6.0_20"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_20-b02)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 16.3-b01, mixed mode)

Remove the “old” JRE:

sudo apt-get remove --purge icedtea*

Link the browser plugin to your Firefox profile:

mkdir -p ~/.mozilla/plugins
rm ~/.mozilla/plugins/libnpjp2.so
ln -s /opt/java/64/jre1.6.0_20/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/

Firefox about:plugins should mention something like Java(TM) Plug-in 1.6.0_20 File: libnpjp2.so