Re: OCI libraries for Linux

[twod_at_not.valid]
|
| Bjorn Borud (borud_at_guardian.no) wrote:
| : I am looking for OCI libraries for Linux. does Oracle sell OCI
| : libraries separately?
|
| There is *no* port of Oracle or any of it's toolset to Linux, so
| there are *no* native OCI libraries available. Oracle does not sell
| the OCI libraries separately, you would have to buy a product that
| they are supplied with.

this is becoming more and more of a farse. at least for Sybase you can get the client libraries separately and for free. at least for Linux -- I do not know if the client libraries are available separately for the other platforms.

as for Solid, not only do their client libraries look better at a glance, but it is relatively easy to obtain them at a reasonable price. (buy a "single seat" server license for about $200,- and you have the libraries). of course, you can run them on Linux as well as other operating systems.

| Knowing the iBCS emulation under Linux, perhaps see if the SCO
| Workgroup Server 90 day trial software is shipped with them.

this sounds sort of "half way legal" and I am not sure I wish to risk doing something that might be illegal. thanks for the tip though.

[snip]

| Personally, I would not attempt to do any OCI/Pro* coding on anything
| other than a native port.

given the uncleanliness, messyness and sketchy "feel" of Oracle I certainly agree with you. I already spend a great deal of time chasing obscure bugs and dealing with faulty error messages (like for instance: in one case I found that OCI complaining about not being able to allocate memory really meant that it couldn't read its charset conversion tables because of incorrect file permissions. great).

| : I have been trying to ask Oracle about this for months but it seems
| : that they simply ignore any email I send them inquiring for the right
| : address for such questions.
|
| The telephone is a much better tool than email in some
| circumstances.

who do you call? I've been on the phone with Oracle a few times the last year or so, but I generally find that more time is spent exchanging billing information than actually helping me. I wouldn't even know where to start if I wanted to talk to someone who can make a difference as to the availability of programming tools.

this is very frustrating to me since I initially had a very positive attitude about using Oracle.

| : I am getting kinda tired of Oracle and if they aren't going to port
| : Oracle (or at least OCI) to Linux I'll might just scrap Oracle and
| : install something else that does support Linux on the database
| : servers.
|
| Going elsewhere is an option and will hit Oracle where it hurts, in the
| year-end $$ totals.

I guess there is no way Oracle will be selling OCI as a separate product any time soon -- and at least not for Linux, so I guess I will have to choose a different database for future projects. too bad really, because I am under the impression that there are more well-trained DBAs using DB2 and Oracle then there are DBAs experienced in using Sybase, Adabas or even Solid.

I'm on the doorstep of choosing database technology for 3 or 4 future projects right now. projects where the database will be very important because it will be the backbone of the system. I am willing to trade functionality for ease of use, stability and portability.

I really don't know if Oracle is what I should be using. since at least two of the projects involve several thousand client machines of various kinds this suggests I won't be using Oracle -- at least not directly without some sane middleware.

-Bjørn

-- 
 Bjørn Borud <borud_at_pvv.org>      | "The Net interprets censorship 
 <URL:http://www.pvv.org/~borud/> | as damage and routes around it."
 UNIX person, one of "them"       |         - John Gilmore