Re: The Denis Prize

<alcesteatxmissiondot_at_com.or.net> wrote in message news:bvicng$kso$1_at_terabinaries.xmission.com...
>
> Howard:
>
> This is actually a pretty interesting challenge. Let me ask the
> following questions:
>
> > mere insertion of a CD.
>
> Can it be a one-liner install? Most don't have any kind of auto-run.

Not sure I understand the point you're making, but my first response was "why not?". On Windows, I insert CD and it runs. Why can't it be likewise on <any other platform you can think of>?

>
> > Said install must work with all and any Linux
> > distributions (it's all the same operating system, after all, isn't
it?). It
>
> Full install of current linux distributions? Full install of Oracle
> supported Linux distributions? Full install of any linux distribution
> not installed from source? I assume you mean _Intel_ linux?
>

OK, someone else I should have been more specific, so here goes. Oracle 9i Release 2, for Mandrake 9.1, Mandrake 9.2, Red Hat 9, Red 8, Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1 and Suse 7.3. Allegedly, these are all the same operating system. But sometimes I have to downgrade the binutils, sometimes not. Sometimes ctx_env throws a problem, sometimes not. Even if I get the install to work (and I usually do) there's another 20 minutes of faffing around with rcX.d scripts to get the instance, the agent, the listener and the management server to startup on machine reboot. Why?

> > must be as automatic as the, cough, Windows install is. It must do
> > everything right, and it must automatically give you the chance to say
>
> Define "everything right." I assume you want the normal java-based
> Oracle installer, or do you forego that?

I don't care how it's done, though I would expect to have to go through the normal Oracle installer. What I don't want to have to go through is creating the Oracle user, creating the install directory locations (the installer should prompt me), running scripts as root twice during the install, having to type in s**tloads of crap to set up envirnoment variables and pray I didn't make a typo... I want to insert a CD, click 'Next' a few times to select the usual things such as type of install, do I want a database, do I want dedicated or shared server, and then for it to all happen. And for the whole lot to autostart on reboot. You know, a bit like a Windows installation.

>
> > whether or not you'd like a database, listener, agent and management
server
> > to automatically start at reboot. And it must make those things
> > automatically re-start if you ask for them to. Multiple CDs are fine,
but
> > crappy install routines aren't.
>
> Jer Smith

This is/was a serious offer. I like Linux. I like Oracle on Linux. But I am sick to the back teeth of the hoops I have to go through to get an Oracle install on Linux to work. It's not as if I can't do it, because I've written papers on the subject. But I object to having to work quite so hard to make it happen. Linux is not going anywhere on the desktop until it can sort this sort of crappy mess out, and it won't go a million miles on the server, either. I shouldn't have to do all this stuff.

So, to re-specify: 9i release 2, on all the Linux distros I mentioned, with an 'insert CD, follow the prompts, and everything works, including automatic start on machine re-boot'. Just like on Windows.

Regards
HJR

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