Hi guys!
I spent some time trying to figure out safe and easy to setup environment for using NEM client.
It seems that official Oracle's Java site (http://www.java.com/en/download/) isn't very friendly for DEB-based Linux distros like Mint or Ubuntu, as it only offers *.tar.gz file and some vague instructions on how to download and unpack it, but falls short of explaining how to actually install and configure it.
So, after some searching I bumped into a really simple step-by-step guide:
http://www.webupd8.org/2012/09/install-oracle-java-8-in-ubuntu-via-ppa.html
which also seems to work nicely with recent Linux Mint 17 (v2) Live CD.
Just skip to "Install Oracle Java 8 (JDK8 and JRE8) in Ubuntu / Linux Mint" section and follow it from there. I also performed the step in "Setting Java environment variables", but don't know for sure if it's actually needed for NEM. There is no need to reboot the system to have a fully working Java 8 environment for NEM infrastructure.
I used standalone version of NEM client and managed to sync-up the wallet and create real account data without any problems after following the guide above on both 32-bit and 64-bit Mint 17 (v2) Live CD sessions. Hope this helps to alleviate some concerns within NEM community about difficulties with Java 8 not being default in most Linux distros just yet.
Cheers!
Thanks for the info. 
From: [url=https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=654845.msg9432335#msg9432335]https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=654845.msg9432335#msg9432335
My wife is using newest/updated Linux Mint (xfce) and there wasn't any trouble installing NEM monitor.
Here are the steps for getting everything working on that setup:
This is for installing java 8:
(Learned here: [url=http://youtu.be/GRlFFAvZO74]http://youtu.be/GRlFFAvZO74)
In command line punch this:<br />sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer<br /><br />java -version<br /><br />
NEM installation:
After that restart your Firefox and go to: http://bob.nem.ninja/webstart
And click on the bottom link to start nem client.
(you may need to allow the Java to run if promted by Firefox).
If you succeed with this - let us know and ask more questions/request testNEMs 
Have a nice day NEMber! 
EDIT: It even works better (no problems whatsoever, straight booting of the node…) and it is easier to setup than on Win7
http://www.unixmen.com/install-oracle-java-jdk-8-centos-76-56-4/
this might have some other information to help