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

From: Stephen Harris <sweh_at_spuddy.mew.co.uk>
Date: 1998/01/01
Message-ID: <EM3rHv.4nA@spuddy.mew.co.uk>#1/1

Kristian Koehntopp (kris_at_koehntopp.de) wrote:

: Two main problems with Linux remain, though. These are a) a very
: heterogenous installed base (different distributions and
: different releases of libraries) and b) a general unwillingness

Not a problem - SCO Oracle for OpenServer 5 is statically linked at install time by the install routines. Relinking the Oracle libraries is common.

By performing this relinking, we eliminate 99% of library version worries.

: to work with no-source-available type of packages.

Err.. IMHO you are confusing two distinct groups of people here (or two distinct uses of Linux). Yes, there are a number of people who love to have the source code (yes, I'm one of them, and it's come in handy in the past), but there is also a large market out there for _solutions_ who don't care about the source code (remember - we are talking about comparing like with like; if Oracle for SCO is acceptable as a solution, then so should Oracle for Linux). I'm also one of these people! Solutions for problems. I recognise there are some areas where I just _can't_ have the source code.

: better"). But still a great deal of support is installation
: support - shrink-wrapped installation as on other Unix platforms
: or under Windows does not work as good.

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!

: certain hostility shown towards the Stardiv developers when they
: discussed the problem in de.comp.os.linux.misc. True, the group
: of people telling them to go away or release source has been
: small, but overly noisy. But this is certainly not the way to
: encourage porting to Linux.

Again, we are talking different markets. I wouldn't expect Oracle to release a Unix product targetted at dumb-user without a clue. Such a dumb user couldn't afford the license fees anyway :-)

$$$$$$$$ That's what Oracle are looking for. Where I work, we are one of the heaviest (non banking) Oracle users in the country. We don't have big databases - we just do very clever and wierd things with it :-) We work the Oracle support desk *hard* and have (we've been told) approximately 3 times more calls logged to our name than any other organisation. And most of the calls escalate to America because they are clever problems we've found. We've even had the code writers talking to us trying to track down the problems. _That's_ hostile in a commercial environment. But we pay our $$$ license fees and they have to grin and bear it.

-- 
                            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 Thu Jan 01 1998 - 00:00:00 CST

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