Re: native Oracle-port on Linux -- what would it take?

Hmmm, My mileage does vary!

I guess that I have been lucky. I mean I installed Oracle 7.3.3 on both an IBM AIX box and 8.0.3 on NT 4.0 last week and had no problems, but then I didn't have any problems back in October when I installed 7.2.3 on an NT 3.5.1 box and 7.3.2 on an NT 4.0 box. I have never had a serious problem with an Oracle install and I have installed Oracle on AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, SCO, and NT. I have installed several versions of Oracle (7.0 beta and production, 7.1.4, 7.1.6, 7.2.3, 7.3.2, 7.3.3, and 8.0.3) and have never had the types of problems you describe.

I must agree that Oracle can be a real pain in the butt to install and I strongly recommend that one Read The Fine Manual -- very carefully -- before doing the install, but if both system and Oracle are configured properly the install goes quickly and smoothly. (One morning last year I installed 7.2.3 on two IBM RS6000s and 7.1.6 on a third RS6000 -- and all went well.)

Oh, one thing I didn't mention that may be of signifigance is that for most of these installs I have either been the Unix Systems Administrator or had access to the root account in addition to being the Oracle DBA. As a result I have been able to configure the boxes the way I wanted without having to get permission or convince an SA before I did anything.

Another thing is that I faithfully follow the Oracle OFA concept and all of my configuration files are in the default location for the flavor of UNIX that I am installing on. (Why go looking for trouble?)

Jerry

Stephen Harris wrote:
>

(snip)

> Blugh? Have you installed Unix Oracle on any platform? The install
> routines (orainst, and root.sh) are broken so badly... (sorry, quick
> divergence into a minor rant about broken Oracle install routines)
>
> Oracle 7.1.6 for Solaris: won't find a valid "oracle" user. Why? Well,
> it looks in the password file, then looks in the NIS tables but then
> totally ignores NIS+. This also _seemed_ to happen with 7.3.3 and 8.0.3
> but I'd dropped NIS+ by that stage. Don't do anything silly like putting
> a / in the ORACLE_SID when prompted by the install screens. It accepts
> it and then blows up 50% of the way through. Hmm, 7.3.2 put the biggest
> load of rubbish into /etc/rc2.d that I've seen (there was no way the machine
> could boot afterwards!).
>
> Oracle 8.0.3 for HPUX: doesn't link correctly at install time and results
> in binaries linked against development versions of 8.0.2 libraries in
> a wierd path (something like /mnt/cdrom/8.0.2/lib/...) I didn't have time
> or inclination to try and break the rest of the install routines (HPUX is
> fragile enough...!)
>
> Where is oratab today? /etc/oratab? /var/opt/oratab?
> /var/opt/oracle/oratab? Same versions on different platforms, different
> versions same platforms... listener.ora files also move around, and come
> out of the install routine not working properly...
>
> Don't even _LOOK_ at their Web Application Server stuff. Beating your
> head against the wall is much less painfull - and ultimately just as
> productive.
>
> Oracle for SCO Openserver is the cleanest install I've seen, and that still
> has problems. The oracle personal server for NT didn't do too bad in
> comparison! Until I came to the ODBC crud :-(
>
> Don't make me laugh with talks of shrink-wrapped Oracle installations. Oh
> yeah... Solaris and HPUX are (meant to be!) their largest server platforms.
> Maybe one day they'll have an install routine that works!
>

> --
> Stephen Harris
> sweh@spuddy.mew.co.uk http://www.spuddy.org/
>
> The truth is the truth, and opinion just opinion. But what is what?
> * Meeeeow ! Call Spud the Cat on > 01268 515441 < for free Usenet access *
Received on Mon Jan 05 1998 - 00:00:00 CST