Linux Distro for Database Learning

Andriy · 09-18-2007, 07:49 AM

Hi! I am planning to study Oracle DB very soon. I was wondering if there is a distro that is specifically designed for database. I know there is Oracle Unbreakable but I want to know if there are others too. And will they be good for studying? Thanks in advance.

antis · 09-18-2007, 08:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andriy

Hi! I am planning to study Oracle DB very soon. I was wondering if there is a distro that is specifically designed for database. I know there is Oracle Unbreakable but I want to know if there are others too. And will they be good for studying? Thanks in advance.

I think any distro will do. I have e.g. installed Oracle 10g on Open Suse 10.2 and it works very well.
You can find a good step by step tutorial to get it going here: http://www.dizwell.com/prod/node/51

Andriy · 09-18-2007, 08:51 AM

Thanks for the quick answer. Personally, I use Slackware because it always keep me up in the learning curve. However, I am hesitant with installing Oracle DB on a Slackware since their packages are intended for certain distros such as RH. I want to go over the hurdle of finding libraries for installation and other prerequisites by having a one-stop distro that has it all but I am considering a distro that is a live cd if possible since I am considering my hard drive space options. Lots o thanks for the reply.

moxieman99 · 09-18-2007, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andriy

Thanks for the quick answer. Personally, I use Slackware because it always keep me up in the learning curve. However, I am hesitant with installing Oracle DB on a Slackware since their packages are intended for certain distros such as RH. I want to go over the hurdle of finding libraries for installation and other prerequisites by having a one-stop distro that has it all but I am considering a distro that is a live cd if possible since I am considering my hard drive space options. Lots o thanks for the reply.

-------------
If you just want to tinker with using a database, look at OpenOffice.org, which has Base as a database component (similar -- no accident -- to Microsoft Access). Also, OpenOffice is on the Knoppix 5.1.1 Live CD, but I cannot remember if Base is part of the OpenOffice package on the Knoppix CD

dguitar · 09-18-2007, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andriy

their packages are intended for certain distros such as RH

You might try CentOS. @ Work we have 10g running on a CentOS 5 box and it runs perfectly. Although, I don't know if it was a hassle or not to setup, but I have a feeling if it was, the DBA would have just setup RH

There is also a great How-To on installing Oracle on Ubuntu 6.06, that seemed pretty easy.

antis · 09-18-2007, 11:26 AM

Oracle 10g comes in a zip file with an install script. No rpm's or other packages.
It's really very straightforward to install and it should be no problem at all to install it on a Slackware box.

However... if HD space is an issue for you it might not be for you.

Andriy · 09-18-2007, 09:02 PM

Hmm...I guess you're right. Looking at the requirements, even the express edition requires at least 4 GB. I think I should reconsider space requirements first before anything. Thanks for the help and suggestion.

gilead · 09-18-2007, 10:47 PM

EDIT: Sorry - didn't see your post about HD space. But just in case...

I have Oracle 10g running on Slackware 11.0 and mostly it's fine. I used the docs at http://www.puschitz.com/ to install it, but used them as a rough guide, not as a step-by-step howto.

I also needed to install libaio to get it to link during the install process. This involved getting the rpms from http://fr2.rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/fe...-3.2.i386.html and http://fr2.rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/fe...-3.2.i386.html, then using rpm2tgz to create packages which I could install with installpkg.

The only annoyance I have with it is that about every 7 weeks the listener dies and can't be restarted. I end up having to re-boot the box.