ORACLE: proper location of PFILE on SuSE 8.1 Linux w/ 9iR2? (newbie q.)

Hello,

After about 3 or 4 attempts I have finally managed to install Oracle and have it start up at boot time!

The most recent obstacle to success has me a bit puzzled ... although I was able to start the database and the listener by running dbca and netca (although I also had some trouble with the listener as well), the startup scripts couldn't find the initialisation file at boot time and therefore couldn't start the database. In my
$ORACLE_HOME/bin/dbstart script there is the following command:

        PFILE=${ORACLE_HOME}/dbs/init${ORACLE_SID}.ora

My ORACLE_SID is "orabob".

However, dbca seems to have put my initialisation file in
$ORACLE_BASE/admin/orabob/pfile/init.ora (not initorabob.ora)! There
is another (sample) init.ora in $ORACLE_HOME/dbs, but the other one has all my parameters set from when I created the database. I then copied the existing init.ora (the one with the parameters set) to
$ORACLE_HOME/dbs/initorabob.ora, and now everything seems hunky-dory.

My questions: Did I leave something out when I created the database, or is this a glitch in the script? Should I leave the PFILE in
$ORACLE_HOME/dbs, or should I edit the script to point to
$ORACLE_BASE/admin/orabob/pfile?? From earlier work with Oracle 8.1.6
on Windows NT I seem to recall that the latter location was not used by the production database except as a repository for scripts and log files, etc. ... the $ORACLE_HOME/dbs location seemed most appropriate somehow.

Thanks!

--
Bob Hairgrove
rhairgroveNoSpam_at_Pleasebigfoot.com