Given what you wrote in your comments, you downloaded the 32-bit version of the jdk. You need to download the 64-bit (x86_64) one.
You mentioned you are accustomed to Windows running both 32-bit and 64-bit programs. While 64-bit versions of Linux can run 32-bit programs just fine, they don't do it out of the box. You'll need to install 32-bit library support. See this thread on how to do it.
But unless you have very specific reasons to run 32-bit software on a 64-bit machine, you're better off simply installing the correct version.
(Note, here I'm talking about x86 specifically. I don't know whether ARM or MIPS behave differently regarding 32- vs 64-bit).
