What's the best way, in Ubuntu Linux, to download the newest version of JRE from the terminal, including converting you pc from using gnu (whose commands are even found by man at this point for some odd reason) to using standard java and javac commands? I've googled for about an hour and the explanations found were just plain terrible and didn't work.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats#head-e2ebd70ede0e3eb2117ffbd618d2295dd1540dca

[edit] my old post below... found the one above afterwards, and it's better, and the sdk part looks like it answers the second part of your question better than mine did anyways[/edit]

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-76735.html

As for going from "gnu to java & javac commands", I don't write java so I'm not sure what you mean by this.

If you mean java and javac use the same compiler name as gcc does, all you've got to do is put a symbolic link somewhere in your path that calls them something like javac or jcc, and then run those instead...

Moving this to the Everything Unix forum.

Not sure if it will help your cause directly, but I often use http://ubuntuguide.org/ for anything (K)Ubuntu related that I have to do.