Re: Do sites actually install Oracle themselves ? What a nightmare...

Richard Lloyd wrote:
>
> I got lumbered with installing an Oracle server and clients (Developer/2000)
> on our HP-UX systems here and I'm amazed at the incredibly poor documentation
> and general installation procedure, which includes:
>
> * Missing steps in the installation. The worst of these was how to convert
> upper case CD-ROM filenames to lower case (you run the START.SH script,
> but neither the CD booklet nor the installation manual tells you that !).
>
> * Very poor flow of installation steps - files are often mentioned before
> they even exist on your system yet and much to-ing and fro-ing through the
> manual is required.
>
> * Manual calculation of memory usage. Why can't you just type in the number
> of users you want to support, select the products and have the installer
> work that out for you ?
>
> * Failure to use shared libraries or even to strip the binaries that go into
> $ORACLE_HOME/bin (I asked Oracle support if it's OK to strip the binaries
> once everything is installed and working and they said yes).
>
> * No support for HP-UX 9.X with the latest Oracle Server release (7.3.2.1.0).
> We asked for 9.X CD-ROMs throughout and got a 10.X server CD-ROM and older
> (7.2) 9.X/10.X client CD-ROMs.
>
> * When you want to install the clients from the Developer/2000 CD-ROM, you
> *have* to re-run the START.SH script on the CD-ROM, which duly deletes the
> nice Motif installer and replaces it with a curses-based one :-(
>
> * One stage in the installation of the Developer/2000 CD-ROM (Oracle Reports
> install) actually *falls over* if you've selected the Motif client option
> (I did both of the options, char-based and Motif). Examination of the
> Makefiles indicate there are, incredibly, NO DEPENDENCIES for most of the
> Makefile rules, so the body of the rule can theoretically refer to a binary
> which hasn't been built yet and without the dependency, it spectacularly
> falls over.
>
> * Oracle ship a Web server and client on the CD-ROMs and yet their on-line
> documentation is in some compressed proprietary format that requires
> Oracle Book to read it. Er, what about supplying the docs in HTML please ?
>
> * When installing the Developer/2000 CD-ROM (which clearly states it's for
> 9.X and 10.X) and choosing *not* to relink executables, the installer does
> so anyway for the clients (I understand it has to do it for the server,
> but it shouldn't need to for the clients). The Oracle Web Browser Makefile
> actually has the line SHELL=/bin/sh in it, which causes failure on a 10.X
> system without transition links.
>
> So am I alone in the universe in actually installing Oracle all on my own ?
> Do other sites call in an Oracle engineer at great expense to install it ?
>
> Either way, Oracle looks like one humungously bloated piece of software that
> I'm dreading to think how much RAM I'll eventually need for it. What's even
> worse is that I have to support a mixed 9.X/10.X environment (10.X server
> and virtually all 9.X client machines), which is another nightmare to think
> about.
>
> Richard K. Lloyd, E-mail: rkl_at_csc.liv.ac.uk
> Connect, WWW: http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/users/rkl/
> 5-31, Great Newton St,
> Liverpool University,
> Merseyside, UK. L69 3BX

Oracle is very complex and powerfull product, definetely not a child play. Get experienced Oracle DBA to install and configure Oracle suite for you.
Halina Monka Received on Thu Jul 18 1996 - 00:00:00 CEST