Oracle related rants (and lots of off-topic stuff)…
I’ve been using Kickstart and network installations for a while now. I think the last time I wrote about it was in RHEL3 days (here).
Well I finally got round to having a look at PXE Network Installations, which just tags an extra bit onto the start to save you running round with boot CDs.
With the amount of installations I’ve been doing recently it’s really handy.
Cheers
Tim…
I had a play around yesterday and installed Oracle 11gR2 on Fedora 12:
I think this might be the last time I install Oracle on Fedora. Why? For two reasons:
So why did I bother with this installation? It seems that Fedora12 will likely be the base which RHEL6 is built on, so it is mildly more interesting to me that previous Fedora releases.
Anyway, the articles are there, but do I care about them? No. I’ve always said I write about what interests me and Fedora (or any other Distro for that matter) are completely irrelevant to me now. I see no point in installing Oracle on anything other than RHEL, and really by that I mean Oracle Enterprise Linux, so that is likely to be what I do from now on. Of course, you should never say never. 🙂
For those people banging their heads against a brick wall trying to install Oracle on unsupported distributions, I say download a free virtualization product (VMware Server or VirtualBox) and use it to install Oracle Enterprise Linux and use that for all your future Oracle installs. It’s free and easy.
Cheers
Tim…
It’s that time again where I check to see if Oracle installs on the latest version of Fedora. The result once again is yes, it does. The main website has the links to the articles. I would add links here only the browser on this internet cafe machine doesn’t support cut & pates. 🙂
When I get on a real computer I’ll put the links in this post as well. 🙂
This release of Fedora is probably quite significant as it is likely to be the base for RHEL6.
Cheers
Tim…
I was part way through watching The Incredible Hulk on the flight to New Zealand when my “Individual On-Demand System” crashed and restarted. I watched with geeky pleasure as Linux booted up. I couldn’t tell the exact version, it went too quick, but I saw “Red Hat” in the text and there was a picture of Tux… 🙂
I’m in New Zealand now, chilling out at a mates house for a few days before starting the New Zealand Oracle User Group conference.
Cheers
Tim…
It looks like those possible VMware ESX articles I mentioned yesterday are now on the VIOPS site.
If you’re interested in the enterprise VMware kit it’s worth taking a look at the site. New stuff is being added all the time. I think it’s official launch is at vmworld2008 in about 3 weeks.
I’ve also added an overview article for the ESX Server installation to my website.
Cheers
Tim…
I wrote a couple of articles against a beta version of Fedora 9 before I went on holiday. I did a run through against the final release of Fedora 9 today and they seem fine, so here they are:
The installation process doesn’t give you the option to turn off SELinux or the firewall. You can do it after the installation, so it’s just a small annoyance, but I don’t like it.
If you want to know my opinions on the distribution itself, read my post on Fedora 8. It’s six months later and there is still no visible sign of a direction for this distribution. I don’t think my opinion has changed.
Cheers
Tim…
During his unconference session at OpenWorld 2007, Lutz Hartmann used rlwrap to give SQL*Plus and RMAN command line history and basic editing functionality. Like the Windows Process Explorer post I wrote recently, this is another example of a gizmo I’ve used in the past then completely forgotten about, so I’m grateful to Lutz for reminding me. To see how I install and configure it click here.
Cheers
Tim…
Update: Someone and just told me my rlwrap post is now ranked higher than Howard’s on Google. This is really a “duck and cover” event. 🙁
My Fedora 8 escapades were delayed by my OpenWorld experience, but better late than never.
The first article is a run through of a fairly basic Fedora 8 install, showing what it looks like. The second is the Oracle install guide in my normal format. There’s one little nasty in there, but for the most part it was pretty smooth sailing, especially since a guy called “Robert W. Benton” emailed me to tell me what the problem was before I had even finished downloading the OS. Thanks for that Robert. 🙂
I’ve mentioned this before, and I’ll no doubt mention it again, but I’m really struggling to see what the Fedora distribution is aiming for. It seems to send out contradicting messages at times. For instance, it has features that make me think it is a desktop OS:
But for me the big contradictions are:
Looking from the other angle, it could be considered a server OS, after all it is a playground for Red Hat (a bit of flame-bait there 🙂 ), but some of the previously mentioned points detract from that message. I remember all those people telling me that Windows wasn’t a real server OS because it forced you to have gizmos like Media Player etc. Fedora has this same feel to me now. Plus the DVD is missing a number of packages that I would expect an enterprise distribution to have. I know they are available for download, but as a server OS I would prefer to forgo the fluffy guff in favor of the enterprise stuff.
I can image some of the responses to this post. No doubt some Fedora fan[boys|girls] will post telling me that Fedora is a great desktop and/or server OS… blah, blah, blah… I’m not doubting that. I just think that we have to recognize that the server and the desktop are two totally different experiences and I don’t think Fedora sells itself well enough on either front.
Ubuntu is a classic example of how to do it right. I don’t believe it is significantly better than Fedora, but it had a clear message from day one. We all knew it was a desktop OS and it acted like that. They’ve subsequently gone the server route also, but they’ve kept it as a separate entity. This is no different to the way Microsoft tackled the same issue.
I really feel like Fedora must decide what its purpose is, or it’s just going to end up another one of those faceless distributions you try, think of as OK, then ditch in favor of something else that suits your purpose better…
Cheers
Tim…
I know it’s all a bit mixed up because I’ve already blogged about events last night, but it’s my blog and I’m allowed to alter the time-line. 🙂
I’ve decided only to blog about stand-out points for me, so here goes…
I went to the DBA 2.0 session by Tom Kyte (and others) in the No Slide Zone. This was a stand-up competition between the command line (DBA 1.0) and Enterprise Manager (DBA 2.0), which not surprisingly DBA 2.0 won. This type of presentation is really great because it feels far less scripted, it’s visually more appealing and you get the see the problems. 🙂 A few people have mentioned that once you attend a few of these presentations, the traditional PowerPoint shows seem really boring. I must admit I’m starting to feel this way. It’s hard for the presentations not to seem rather homogeneous. I think I’m going to alter my schedule and ditch a whole bunch of stuff and just seek out the “less standard” fair for the rest of the week.
I went to the Carry Millsap presentation on “Why You Can’t See Your Real Performance Problems”. He’s a really relaxed and natural speaker, so it was really enjoyable.
Later in the day I went to the “Install Fest”. Those who follow my website will know I spend a lot of time installing Oracle on Linux, so it was not instantly apparent, even to myself, why I would want to go the an event where you got to install Oracle on Linux… There was a large mix of ability, and it was very noisy (see later anecdotes), but it was quite good to hear the range of questions being asked. It gives you a better sense of your audience. The talk by Wim Coekaerts was cool, but I’ve already blogged about that. All in all, a cool event, even if I did miss the party happening next door… Doh!
I mentioned previously the Install Fest was rather noisey. At one point the doors opened and there was a lot of noise. I caught myself saying under my breath something about going away and procreating, just at the point Chris Muir sat down in the row in front of me. He then turned round, said sorry and proceeded to move. I hastily explained my comment wasn’t directed at him. Very embaressing, and a good advert for keeping your gob shut! 🙂
Fun fun fun…
Cheers
Tim…
PS. I got 4 hours sleep last night. I woke up about 04:00 this morning. I’m going to start seeing pixies and walls of fire if I don’t get my sleeping pattern back soon…