The Oracle page that specifies Java 8 system requirements on Linux is ambiguous (at least to me)
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/certconfig-2095354.html
It states that
Red Hat Enterprise Linux x86 (32-bit) 6.x 1.8.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux x64 (64-bit) 6.x 1.8.0 Only 64-bit JRE is supported
Does this mean that 32bit is supported for JDK and JRE but 64bit is only supported for JRE? That does look a bit odd.
For RHEL 7 it says that only 64bit JRE is supported. No mention of 32bit.
I thought that the only difference between JDK and JRE was the tools. Surely the JVM is the same.
I have some processes that really need to be on 32bit for a few months longer until some native libs are updated. I have a mixture of RHEL 5.5 and 6.x.