A bit of Linux advice yet again??

OK, maybe I should post this in a Linux newsgroup, but...

Against all the odds, I've gotten 9.2 to run on Mandrake 9.0 (which, I have to say, is the first Linux distro I've seen that's persuaded me there are viable alternatives to Windows). I have a "DB9" instance/database and an OEMREP instance/database. Log on as the Oracle user, and there's not a problem.

But I want to log on as me. So, I create a .profile in my home directory that sets all the usual variables, including path.

I reboot the machine, just because I'm a former Windows user and we're used to that sort of thing. I log on as me. I open a terminal window, and type 'sqlplus', and I get the error 'command not found'.

I then type ". ./.profile", and the 'sqlplus' command works perfectly.

Now, I realise I only know the backend of batch files, but I was rather under the impression that .profile would be invoked the moment I logged in. So why isn't it? What am I doing wrong (try and keep the list modestly short!).

Oh -one other thing. I know all about oratab, and I *do* get both my instances starting automatically at reboot. But how does one automate the intelligent agent and listener? oratab doesn't seem syntactically capable of doing these, so I guess I must look elsewhere. Am I deep into shell scripting at this point??

Forebearance for a Windows user, please. I am at least trying!!

Regards
HJR Received on Sat Feb 01 2003 - 01:36:00 CST