Hello,
I have been reading this thread with interest because I am a Linux user and had the same issue in trying to get Ancestris to work on my Linux Mint 19.01 computer.
I am new to this forum and joined specifically to let you all know the I followed the advice given by Zurga, who says in one of his replies in this thread "You don't need to "install" Java 8. you can just unzip / untar a jdk or jre bundle".
I followed the instructions he gave on how to download , unzip, and save the JDK files. And also his instructions on how to edit the ancestris.conf file to give the correct path to the JDK folder you create.
I am not a Linux geek but I found his instructions were easy enough to follow and the task is fairly simple to carry out. After editing the .conf file and saving it my Ancestris program inititallised and began running as it should. I am very pleased with this simple fix to the problem because it involves no messing around with different versions of Java and there is no security risk involved, as far as I can see.
Here's how I carried out Zurga's procedure -
1. I created in my /home directory a new folder which I named "jdk for ancestris".
2. I then downloaded the JDK tar/gz file from the Zurga's weblink and saved it in my /Downloads folder.
3. When download was complete I right clicked the saved JDK tar/gz folder and extracted the contents into the new "jdk for ancestris" folder in my home directory.
4. I then navigated to the newly extracted JDK files and copied the full path.
5. I then did a file search to find the correct Ancestris program folder which contains the .etc folder.
6. I right clicked on ancestris/.etc and chose to "open as root" to give me admin rights.
7. I found inside ancestis/.etc the ancestris.conf file which I opened with a text editor and carried out Zurga's first instruction which was "Remove the first character of line 18 (beginning with #jdkhome". (That is, remove the # sign.)
8. I then replaced the path between the double quotes, on the same line, with the full path to my new JDK files. The full path I used was “/home/exminer/jdk for ancestris/jdk8u212-b03”
9. I then saved and closed the .conf file and when I opened Ancestris it started with that annoying "initialising" screen but instead of disappearing it actually did initialise and the program opened, and is running nicely thankyou.
So a big thankyou to Zurga. You solved my problem for which I am much obliged.
Cheers.