What exactly is the purpose of JDK - running java programs or developing?
There seems to be too many packages that include java and jdk/sdk in their title. Which one should I install if I want to develop Java applications?
Who uses JAVA_HOME and what should I set it to be?
Solution
JDK is development environment. JVM is runtime environment.
You should download java installer from oracle web site or install it from repositiry manager
JAVA_HOME system variable usually is required for enterprice java software (application servers, DBs, development tools and so on). You should set JAVA_HOME variable to root directory of JDK or JVM(setting it to JDK always works, but maybe some software will run as expected with JAVA_HOME pointing to JRE). If you set JAVA_HOME right then $JAVA_HOME/bin/java -version command should pring version of java.