aren’t you using (k/l)ubuntu? i’m pretty sure there should be a working version in the apt package repositories (no need to deal with oracle’s BS, apparently just downloading the official JDK requires an account for some reason), at least on mint that was the case.
most likely, it happens with blank forge installs and for most (but not all) also on vanilla. it’s usually due to intel UHDs but some also reported that on certain integrated AMD GPUs and one report actually ran on a dedicated nvidia 10-series card (we triple checked).
there’s a possibility that it’s some general rendering thing that conflicts with new drivers which might be fixable if only we could figure out the exact difference between how 1.7’s rendering works and how other seemingly unaffected versions do it. the other possibility would be that it’s something related to the LWJGL that mc 1.7 runs on, in which case we’d be screwed.