Linux Mint Petra (16) Java Update from JRE 7 to JRE 8 breaks Graphics System?

Question

(Note: I'm a firm believer in "if it works, you don't need to fix it." Which is why this laptop is still running Linux Mint 16 - so far it does everything I have needed, and wonderfully so.)

I had begun playing with MineCraft, and one of the plugins started behaving erratically, leaving me messages that I needed to upgrade from 7 to 8 for better compatibility. Naturally, there is NO place that makes this upgrade easy or simple. So I browsed out to the web looking for an instruction set that would enable me to accomplish this. Achieved: Wiki-How From all outward appearances it would seem that I have successfully upgraded Java.

Until I decided to start MineCraft back up. On Linux MineCraft doesn't leave a startup log on your desktop as it does on Windows, so I had to try and run the java command line at a prompt to find this error:

Starting launcher.
[21:16:13 INFO]: Minecraft Launcher 1.6.61 (through bootstrap 4) started on linux...
[21:16:13 INFO]: Current time is May 17, 2016 9:16:13 PM
[21:16:13 INFO]: System.getProperty('os.name') == 'Linux'
[21:16:13 INFO]: System.getProperty('os.version') == '3.12.4-031204-generic'
[21:16:13 INFO]: System.getProperty('os.arch') == 'i386'
[21:16:13 INFO]: System.getProperty('java.version') == '1.8.0_92'
[21:16:13 INFO]: System.getProperty('java.vendor') == 'Oracle Corporation'
[21:16:13 INFO]: System.getProperty('sun.arch.data.model') == '32'
[21:16:13 INFO]: proxy == DIRECT
[21:16:14 INFO]: JFX is already initialized
Graphics Device initialization failed for :  es2, sw
Error initializing QuantumRenderer: no suitable pipeline found
java.lang.RuntimeException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Error initializing QuantumRenderer: no suitable pipeline found
  at com.sun.javafx.tk.quantum.QuantumRenderer.getInstance(QuantumRenderer.java:280)
  at com.sun.javafx.tk.quantum.QuantumToolkit.init(QuantumToolkit.java:221)
  at com.sun.javafx.tk.Toolkit.getToolkit(Toolkit.java:205)
  at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl.startup(PlatformImpl.java:209)
  at javafx.embed.swing.JFXPanel.initFx(JFXPanel.java:215)
  at javafx.embed.swing.JFXPanel.<init>(JFXPanel.java:230)
  at net.minecraft.launcher.ui.tabs.website.JFXBrowser.<init>(JFXBrowser.java:31)
  at net.minecraft.launcher.ui.tabs.WebsiteTab.selectBrowser(WebsiteTab.java:45)
  at net.minecraft.launcher.ui.tabs.WebsiteTab.<init>(WebsiteTab.java:23)
  at net.minecraft.launcher.ui.tabs.LauncherTabPanel.<init>(LauncherTabPanel.java:18)
  at net.minecraft.launcher.ui.LauncherPanel.<init>(LauncherPanel.java:37)
  at net.minecraft.launcher.SwingUserInterface.initializeFrame(SwingUserInterface.java:121)
  at net.minecraft.launcher.Launcher.<init>(Launcher.java:92)
  at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
  at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
  at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
  at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:423)
  at net.minecraft.bootstrap.Bootstrap.startLauncher(Bootstrap.java:226)
  at net.minecraft.bootstrap.Bootstrap.execute(Bootstrap.java:112)
  at net.minecraft.bootstrap.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:367)
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Error initializing QuantumRenderer: no suitable pipeline found
  at com.sun.javafx.tk.quantum.QuantumRenderer$PipelineRunnable.init(QuantumRenderer.java:94)
  at com.sun.javafx.tk.quantum.QuantumRenderer$PipelineRunnable.run(QuantumRenderer.java:124)
  at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
FATAL ERROR: net.minecraft.bootstrap.FatalBootstrapError: Unable to start: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
  at net.minecraft.bootstrap.Bootstrap.startLauncher(Bootstrap.java:228)
  at net.minecraft.bootstrap.Bootstrap.execute(Bootstrap.java:112)
  at net.minecraft.bootstrap.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:367)


Please fix the error and restart.
[21:16:16 INFO]: Window closed, shutting down.
[21:16:16 INFO]: Halting executors
[21:16:16 INFO]: Awaiting termination.
[21:16:16 INFO]: Goodbye.

...everything else seems to run fine, and the important thing that I'm trying to figure out is how to fix what I busted, as surely I have busted something in my ignorant attempts to upgrade Java.

Before this becomes a "chicken-egg" argument, I carefully weighed the idea of posting this under Gaming but decided that it was my ham-fisted attempts at upgrading a major process library that caused the issue, thus I filed it under Linux, throwing myself on the mercy of the deities of same.

More information available upon request.

Answer 1

Short of upgrading your Mint installation, the easiest way to upgrade to Java 8 is as you found out to install Oracle's JDK. The correct way to do this though is to use java-package. Start by downloading the appropriate JDK from Oracle, then

sudo apt-get install java-package
make-jpkg jdk-8u92-linux-x64.tar.gz
sudo dpkg -i oracle-java8-jdk_8u92_amd64.deb

(If you have a later version of the JDK, adjust the filenames to suit.) This works for Linux on amd64. If you're on i386 — dpkg --print-architecture will tell you — you'd use the i586 tarball and install oracle-java8-jdk_8u92_i386.deb. This should also work on armhf and arm64 with the appropriate JDK.

As far as your actual breakage is concerned, this feels to me like a 32-/64-bit mismatch — you have a 32-bit JDK, perhaps you only have 64-bit graphics libraries.