Fedora 10 and Oracle 11gR1…

I like to meddle with Fedora from time to time, just so I can see what’s coming round the corner in RHEL. I read recently that Fedora 11 will be the base for RHEL6, which means we are about 6 months away from seeing what the future of RHEL is going to be…

Much as I expected, there were no real problems getting Oracle 11gR1 running on Fedora 10. Here is an OS and an Oracle installation guide for Fedora 10.

The Fedora 10 network configuration dialog seemed to have a couple of issues/bugs. For a start, it was impossible to set the subnet mask. It was constantly overwritten by the default gateway. I adjusted it in the config file and it was fine, but it was a bit confusing for a while. 🙂

I’ve complained a number of times in the past that Fedora doesn’t seem to have an obvious direction. Is it server or is it desktop? Of course it’s both, but I think some clear intent helps from a marketing point of view. The fact that the Desktop Edition, a live CD, is at the top of the Get Fedora page will save many people form downloading a DVD full of software they will never need. Once installed, you get access to all the software via the “Add/Remove Software” dialog.

A few interesting things about the installation are:

  • The installation package list is fixed. There’s no customization during the installation.
  • The installer assumes you want DHCP for your network.
  • SELinux and the Firewall are on by default.
  • Services like SSHD are not on by default.

I guess if these issues annoy you, don’t pick the desktop edition. 🙂

I think this is definite step in the right direction as far as encouraging Fedora for desktop use.

Cheers

Tim…

Twitter Spring Cleaning…

I’ve just been having a bit of a spring (winter) clean of my “following” list on Twitter. Recently I’ve found it a bit of a struggle to keep on top of all the tweets, and when it becomes a struggle you either have to ditch it or clean up.

Next I have to bite the bullet and sort out FriendFeed

Cheers

Tim…

Quantum of Solace…

Daniel Craig is now my favourite Bond. When Casino Royale was released I thought it was a close call between him and Sean Connery, but now I’m convinced.

That said, I think Quantum of Solace is far from being a great film. Most of the action sequences were well off the mark. The shots were so close up and shaky that it was impossible to see what was going on. When will Hollywood learn that excessive and inappropriate use of shaky camera is not cool?

The fact that this is a sequel to Casino Royale also presented me with a problem. I’ve not seen that film in ages so I was struggling to remember how some of that film related to this one.

Anyway, I think it’s worth the money, but it didn’t totally rock my world.

Cheers

Tim…

PIVOT and UNPIVOT in 11g…

I’m trying to get back into the swing of writing again after my 2 month layoff. It’s a little daunting, but quite fun as well.

There’s a bunch of 11g new features that didn’t make it into the OCP exam, and the PIVOT and UNPIVOT operators fall slap bang into that category.

Pretty neat!

Cheers

Tim…

Oracle 11g RAC On Linux Using VMware Server 2…

I mentioned in a previous post I had taken the plunge and upgraded to VMware Server 2 on my laptop. Now I’ve also upgraded my main machine at home and it seems to be working fine. Probably the most complicated thing I run at home is a virtual RAC, so I wrote a new article to document the installation:

From a user point of view, the only difference between VMware Server 1.x and 2 is the new web-based managment interface. The VM setup itself is almost identical and as you would expect, so is the Oracle installation.

So far so good.

Cheers

Tim…