Roedy said:
steveh44 wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
Nearly everyone uses Oracle. That is the one newbies should use.
As Qu0ll and I pointed out, this is pretty much equivalent to using OpenJDK.. Most Linuces use OpenJDK, as Arne pointed out. There's really no difference. I've also used IBM's JDK 6 without any pain.
To Qu0ll's point that Oracle's JDK 7 is OpenJDK, that's 99% true. There are pieces you can purchase that supplement the open-source part, such as thesoft real-time version, that are not in OpenJDK. I was unable to confirm that the current Oracle release is precisely the same as OpenJDK, but it's clear that the differences, if any, are in the corners.
Anyway, for the OP's purpose just use either one.