How many ORACLE_HOME values are there supposed to be?

i'm a newbie.

i got directed to the "concepts" manual earlier. took a look at it. a huge chunk of it is basically "Oracle's version of postgres", ie, a whole lot of stuff about how oracle operates once it's up and running, ie, SQL. ignoring those chapters, i picked out and printed the chapters i thought would be of some use to me. that turned out to be: 1,3,5-6,8-9,22-23. 22-23 are security, and i expect those will be of some use eventually.

i looked at the others closely enough to see they weren't going to help.

how many different values of ORACLE_HOME are there supposed to be? i have to install the application server, too, and it seems to indicate that there needs to be an ORACLE_HOME value for the infrastructure and the application server. i can't remember now if they're all supposed to be distince DB, IAS, and infrastructure, and that's part of what i'm asking. will i need three?

if i cruise through the response files for the DB alone, there's at least five places to enter a value for ORACLE_HOME. i guess they need to be the same, because I don't get prompted five or more times during an interactive install. is my surmise correct?

and another thing, is ORACLE_HOME going to be used to set the PATH variable? is it just important during the install?

seems like there needs to be something that lets me decide these questions without trying to tease it out.

-- 
Jay Scott		512-835-3553		gl_at_arlut.utexas.edu
Head of Sun Support, Sr. Operating Systems Specialist
Applied Research Labs, Computer Science Div.                   S224
University of Texas at Austin