well, java plugin is only build on 32bit. to have it work in firefox there's
only one way: 32bit firefox.
for the other extensions (that on 64bit work) to work with 32bit you need to
build them for 32bit with the correct flag set into portage, on multilib
systems, as yours, portage can build 32bit binaries natively. all you have
to do is pass to portage the right flag to do so and to unmask the 32bit
package. for how to do this search in the gentoo documentation.
the other way to use java on 64bit is konqueror on kde (i don't know it
nautilus does this too): konqueror would use the 64bit javavm, which was
build also on 64bit, and can use flash via nspluginwrapper and
netscape-flash. in this way you'd have a native 64bit web client, with flash
plugin, also only 32bit version, enabled via emulation with nspluginwrapper.
for having konqueror work set it recognization to firefox or iexplore in the
preferences, or you might miss some sites' features that required firefox or
iexploder.
for nautilus on gnome you might try to see if it supports 64bit java and
nspluginwrapper too.
these are the actual choices for java and flash on 64bit platoforms. i
really hope that firefox 3 would come out with support for javavm for linux
and not with only that crappy javaplugin one.

2008/1/26, Mark Knecht <markknecht@gmail.com>:
>
> On Jan 26, 2008 11:33 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net>
> wrote:
> > Mark Knecht wrote:
> > > On Jan 26, 2008 11:05 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > <SNIP>
> > >
> > > This is likely the culprit:
> > >
> > > lightning ~ # eix nspluginwrapper
> > > [I] net-www/nspluginwrapper
> > >      Available versions:  0.9.91.4 ~0.9.91.5 ~0.9.91.5-r1
> > >      Installed versions:  0.9.91.4(12:21:31 PM 11/12/2007)
> > >      Homepage:
> http://www.gibix.net/projects/nspluginwrapper/
> > >      Description:         Netscape Plugin Wrapper - Load 32bit plugins
> > > on 64bit browser
> > >
> > > lightning ~ # emerge -pv nspluginwrapper
> > >
> > > These are the packages that would be merged, in order:
> > >
> > > Calculating dependencies... done!
> > > [ebuild   R   ] net-www/nspluginwrapper-0.9.91.4  0 kB
> > >
> > > Total: 1 package (1 reinstall), Size of downloads: 0 kB
> > > lightning ~ #
> >
> > # emerge -pv nspluginwrapper
> >
> > These are the packages that would be merged, in order:
> >
> > Calculating dependencies... done!
> > [ebuild   R   ] net-www/nspluginwrapper-0.9.91.5-r1  0 kB
> >
> > Total: 1 package (1 reinstall), Size of downloads: 0 kB
> > DreamScape ~ #
> >
> > Well ... I uninstalled mozilla-firefox and installed
> > mozilla-firefox-bin. It said, "NB -- you are installing a 32-bit
> > Firefox". The good news is that it works with Java and the R search
> > engine! The bad news is that it doesn't have all the *other* plugins
> > that the 64-bit compiled Firefox did. Do I need to re-emerge them? Will
> > revdep-rebuild clean this up?
>
> This is the age old problem, as far as I know, with 64-bit Linux and a
> world full of 32-bit multimedia.  I think this wiki will surely
> explain it better than I ever could. Hopefully the basic info you need
> is there:
>
> http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_firefox_with_java_on_amd64
>
> I will say that my experience is that so far no single browser/plugin
> combination works as well for all web media types as our 32-bit
> brethren have, and that doesn't work as well as Windows. There are
> issues with Java, Flash support, mplayer and other plugins for
> streaming file types, so the answer is no one answer seems to be right
> for everyone. My setup work *ok* for me, not well. I'm not happy with
> it but I'm not motivated enough to change things. I trade stocks on a
> Windows laptop so I use that machine for the numerous things I cannot
> do on Linux, 32-bit or 64-bit.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Mark
> --
> gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
>
>


-- 
dott. ing. beso