What version of Java is “1.8.0_191” on my Ubuntu install?

On of our (remote) developers needs to install FDT (an Eclipse based IDE) to compile some legacy ActionScript code. I’ve got FDT working on my Ubuntu 18.04 laptop just fine, but the dev is having trouble getting it to work on his Mac. When he has Java version 7, 8 or 9 installed he gets a message saying

we need legacy java you can download it here...

and if he uses Java version 6, it says it needs version 7 or more.

So I checked which version I have on my Ubuntu 18.04 laptop so he can get the same one, and to my surprise it says:

$ java -version
java version "1.8.0_191"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_191-b12)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.191-b12, mixed mode)

As far as I know Java is WAY ahead of version 1.8. So I logged into our production server (Ubuntu 16.04) and there we’ve got something similar:

$ java -version
openjdk version "1.8.0_191"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_191-8u191-b12-0ubuntu0.16.04.1-b12)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.191-b12, mixed mode)

I checked out the OpenJDK website and there it says OpenJDK is now at version 11.

What version of Java my laptop is actually running so our dev can get the same version?

Answer

You are using Java 8.

The Mac problem is a historic one because the legacy question is for a 32-bit JVM for some programs and you need a 64-bit for Java 8.

Install the Java 6 the programs want and then install A newer java from oracle and he should be good to go.