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The Oracle JDK License has changed for releases starting April 16, 2019.

The new Oracle Technology Network License Agreement for Oracle Java SE is substantially different from prior Oracle JDK licenses. The new license permits certain uses, such as personal use and development use, at no cost -- but other uses authorized under prior Oracle JDK licenses may no longer be available. Please review the terms carefully before downloading and using this product. An FAQ is available here.

Oracle Java downloads now require logging in to an Oracle account to download Java updates, like the latest Oracle Java 8u211 / Java SE 8u212. Because of this I cannot update the PPA with the latest Java (and the old links were broken by Oracle).

For this reason, THIS PPA IS DISCONTINUED (unless I find some way around this limitation).

Oracle Java 8 is now stable. Below you'll find instructions on how to install it in Ubuntu / Linux Mint via a PPA repository. The PPA supports JDK8 for both 32bit and 64bit as well as ARM (ARM v6/v7 Hard Float ABI - there's no JDK 8 ARM Soft Float ABI archive available for download on Oracle's website).

As a reminder, the WebUpd8 Oracle Java PPA doesn't include any Java binaries, just a script that automatically downloads and install Oracle Java 8. Everything is done automatically so you'll get updates through the update manager for JDK8 which includes JRE8 and the Java browser plugin.

It's also important to note that the Oracle Java 8 installer is considered in alpha and is offered without any guarantees! Use it at your own risk. If you ISP or router blocks the ports used by the Oracle Java 8 download servers, the installation may fail.

If you want to install Oracle Java 7 instead, see THIS post (PPA for all supported Ubuntu / Linux Mint versions).

Debian users will find installation instructions in the following article: How To Install Oracle Java 8 In Debian Via Repository [JDK8]


Install Oracle Java 8 (JDK8 and JRE8) in Ubuntu or Linux Mint


Oracle JDK8 installer

Oracle JDK8 installer

The installer provides Oracle Java 8 (which includes Java JDK, JRE and the Java browser plugin). However, you can't only install Oracle JRE - the PPA only provides the full Oracle JDK8 package.

Our PPA supports Ubuntu 16.10, 16.04, 15.10, 14.04 and 12.04 as well as Linux Mint 18, 17.x and 13. Add the PPA and install Oracle Java 8 (the package provides both JDK8 and JRE8) using the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

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Update October 20, 2016:

Previously, this package would increment the Java priority to make it default. The oracle-java8-installer package now sets the Java priority to 1081, and that may or may not set it as default, depending on other Java packages you may have installed (for instance, if Java 7 is also installed, Java 8 becomes default, but if Java 9 is installed, Java 8 doesn't become default).

To make Java 8 default, you must install the "oracle-java8-set-default" package (which configures the Java environment variables and sets it as default), which I added as a "Recommended" package to "oracle-java8-installer".

In Ubuntu, recommended packages are automatically installed, so "oracle-java8-set-default" should be installed when installing "oracle-java8-installer". In Linux Mint on the other hand, recommended packages are not installed by default, so you must install this package manually if you want to set Oracle Java 8 as default.

So, if you want to set Oracle Java 8 as default, no matter what other Java versions are installed, make sure that you install the oracle-java8-set-default package (which, again, should be automatically installed with the main Oracle Java Installer package in Ubuntu, but not in Linux Mint):
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-set-default

If you don't want to make Oracle Java 8 default (it might still be set as default, depending on what other Java versions you may have installed), install the oracle-java8-installer with "--no-install-recommends":
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends oracle-java8-installer

Note: removing the oracle-java8-set-default package does not undo all the changes (I have yet to find a way to do this properly). If you don't want to set it as default, remove both oracle-java8-installer and oracle-java8-set-default packages, and then install oracle-java8-installer with "--no-install-recommends" (like mentioned above).
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Tip: if you're behind a firewall / router that blocks some of the redirects required to download the Oracle Java archive, you can download the JDK tar.gz archive manually and place it under /var/cache/oracle-jdk8-installer - then, installing the "oracle-java8-installer" package will use the local archive instead of trying it to download it itself.

After installing Oracle Java and the "oracle-java8-set-default" package, running "java -version" in a terminal should output something like this:
andrei@andrei-desktop:~$ java -version
java version "1.8.0_111"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_111-b14)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.111-b14, mixed mode)
Or, "javac -version":
andrei@andrei-desktop:~$ javac -version
javac 1.8.0_111
And so on.


Automated installation (auto accept license)


The installer requires you to accept the Oracle license before the installation begins. This is only required once. If for some reason you need the installation to be automated, you can run the following command to automatically accept the Oracle license:
echo oracle-java8-installer shared/accepted-oracle-license-v1-1 select true | sudo /usr/bin/debconf-set-selections


Switching between Oracle Java 9 and Java 7


You can have both Java 8 and Java 9 installed in the same time, but only one can be set as default.

To set which is default, simply install its "set-default" package: oracle-java8-set-default for Oracle Java 8, or oracle-java9-set-default for Oracle Java 9.

Update: if you're looking for Oracle Java 11, it's available in a different PPA. See THIS article for instructions on installing it in Ubuntu or Debian. Oracle Java 15 on Ubuntu, Linux Mint or Debian from that same APT PPA repository.