Senthil Rajendran

I am talking about Google Chrome OS.


You can get the Source Code from http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os and set of instructions to get the ISO Image. Then move the ISO image into a USB drive and have fun.
It takes 7 seconds to boot.OS login is single sign-on and so then after no passwords
I hope Oracle will find some space into Google Chrome OS.  Oracle Database XE and APEX are the two best options that will be interesting for the Oracle Community to start with in Google Chrome OS.

I am not going to be detailed as there are lots of discussion on 11g Upgrade, yet I want to share my experience.
I work on a warehouse environment with discoverer as the reporting tool. ASM is used for storage management.So there are four databases on one server to be upgraded.
ASM Warehouse DatabaseWarehouse Design Repository DatabaseApplication Server Metadata Repository
Interestingly and commonly all the database has to be upgraded in a short time frame to minimizing the downtime. Note: All the database has been individually tested and so I had an option to bundle them into one upgrade window.
So here are few tips that I took to reduce the downtime
Operating System , I made sure that the OS patches and kernel are properly set on a separate weekend.Space , I made sure that there is enough space for the new oracle homes.Software , Base 11.1.0.6 , Upgrade Patchset 11.1.0.7 and PSU October 2009 is properly staged.
A day before the upgrade downtimeI create the directory structures for the 4 oracle homeInstalled 11.1.0.6 into the ASM Home.Upgraded the ASM Home to 11.1.0.7 Installed PSU Patch Setup Update which also includes the latest CPU to the ASM Oracle Home.Ran the Pre-Upgrade Scripts and took necessary action.Prepared a checklist for re-checking the same during upgrade window.
For the other Oracle Home I cloned the ASM Home by following the cloning procedure , there by saved a lot of time. The ASM Home had the latest patchset and PSU update , so it was handly and contacted once to run all the root.sh by the unix administrator.
The Upgrade DaySo , 50% of my work was done , i.e, I have all my Oracle Home with latest patchset updates ready for upgrade.Reverified Pre-Upgrade ScriptsBacked Up the Databases First I started with the ASM migration with DBUA Then I started DBUA from three different VNC Server for the 3 Oracle Home and upgraded three of them in parallel.Note: During Upgrade I opted to switch of archival and flashback.Performed Post Upgrade necessary task.
My server had enough CPU and Memory to support the parallelism and so I did , please do not upgrade in parallel if the hardware is less resourced.
Summary of key areas of reducing the downtime window:- Prepare the Operating System in advance.- Prepare the 11g Oracle Home in advance.- Use Oracle Home cloning procedure to reduce the effort.- Upgrade all the Database in Parallel- Switch off archival and flashback in the DBUA wizard.
Overall I had a peaceful upgrade to 11g R1. I hope this helps.

I had a tough time running xserver on windows , sometime back I used Exceed but I could not use it longer since it is a trial version.Running VNC was not an option in my environment.
I switched from Exceed to XMing , I ran into many problems. Performance was one key area. DBCA has some problems with the XServers , after the Finish Button is clicked at the end of the setup , the Database Configuration Assistance pops up. This was not possible for me in XMing.
I contacted a linux expert to understand the problem with XMing and he suggested that there may be some missing fonts. Even that did not help.
Later I switched to Cygwin
It seems to be stable as of now , DBCA works fine.
Here is what you have to do if you need Cygwin.
Download it and complete the setup.Start a cygwin promptRun /usr/X11R6/bin/startxwin.batXServer pops out. Open Putty and use X11 forwarding and connect to the serverInvoke xclock and it should be working.
I hope this helps.

On Oracle Enterprise Linux 5 Update 4 , SELinux Security Policy does not allow to run root.sh after the Grid Oracle Home Installation.
Fixing the SELinux policy by running the recommendation and by rerunning root.sh did not succeed. There are other policy restrictions to sqlplus by SELinux also , so it better to Disable the SELinux or set it to 'Permissive' mode which gives a warning message in the SELinux control panel.
Metalink Document 457458.1 How to Disable SELinux can help to understand how to handle SELinux.
In my caseI cleaned up the 11g R2 setup with Oracle DeInstall utility Set SELinux to 'Permissive' ( Server reboot is not required )Restarted the Oracle runInstaller.
Hope this helps