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I've seen many articles about HOW to install Java. My question is WHICH one should I install for Java development? OpenJDK 6, OpenJDK 7, Oracle Java 6, or Oracle Java 7? Some sites tell me to install Oracle Java 6 AND 7, some say just 7. So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of them both?

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It clearly depends on which Java version you might want to develop on. Please see this link for the differences between Java 6 and Java 7. Some sites suggest java 6 because it is considered to be more stable than 7. Please note that anything you can do with java version 6, you can do with 7 too.

If I were in your shoes, I would use the OpenJDK 7, but be sure to download the SDK and not the runtime if you want to be able to do software development with. I do not know if it is 100% compliant with the Oracle version of Java, however it should be enough to cover most developer's needs.

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    +1 for distinguishing between the SDK and the runtime.
    – Aaron
    Aug 25, 2012 at 19:02
  • When I do sudo apt-cache search OpenJDK it returns only OpenJDK-7-JDK. Is that what I'm looking for? I understand that the JRE is only for using Java applications (Java Runtime Environment) but by SDK you mean Java Development Kit, correct?
    – umop aplsdn
    Aug 26, 2012 at 0:49
  • Exactly. The JDK is what you need in your case.
    – NlightNFotis
    Aug 26, 2012 at 5:37

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