wine users - Nov 2010 - wine startup always slow on Ubuntu 64-bit

Whenever I try running wine on Ubuntu 10.10 64-bit - either a program or
"Configure Wine" - it takes a minute or so for it to start! It happens
on both my System 76 and my Acer laptops.

On the other side, when I'm running a 32-bit Ubuntu on an old Lenovo, Wine
startup works fine.

Is there an optimized 64-bit configuration I am not aware of?

Thanks,

Eduardo