Getting runInstaller to accept your version

Of course, you can start with the "-ignoreSysPrereqs" switch, but if you just want to see if all is OK, fool the installer by tweaking oraparam.ini (in the install subdirectory) by adding the correct version.

I am running CentOS 5.5 (Final), which is indicated by the contents of the file /etc/redhat-release:

[oracle@oracleas install]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS release 5.5 (Final)

The oraparam.ini file looks like:

[Certified Versions]
Linux=redhat-Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4,redhat-2.1,redhat-3,SuSE-9,UnitedLinux-1.0

[Linux-redhat-Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4-optional]

Change that to:(mind you: two places, although the second one is not very omportant)

[Certified Versions]
Linux=redhat-CentOS release 5.5 (Final),redhat-3,SuSE-9,UnitedLinux-1.0

[Linux-redhat--CentOS release 5.5 (Final)-optional]

and you have managed to trick the installer into believing this was the correct and supported version to start with:

[oracle@oracleas install]$ ./runInstaller -paramFile /home/oracle/oraparam.ini
Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking installer requirements...

Checking operating system version: must be redhat-CentOS release 5.5 (Final), redhat-3, SuSE-9 or UnitedLinux-1.0
Passed


All installer requirements met.

Clone your Machine (VirtualBox)

It seemed so easy, but it turned out not to be. After using Export/Import once, your disk image gets the internal UUID from the original. You cannot clone your baseline once more, as the UUID is already being used.
You will have to fall back to the CLI, and issue

vboxmanage clonevdi

That will clone your virtual disk. You still have to create a new Virtual Machine (VM), and attach this disk to it. The cloning part takes some time, the rest is peanuts.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Oracle under VirtualBox

Versions

I'm running Sun VirtualBox V3.1.6 r59338. Got it installed via Synaptic, not the Ubuntu Software Center. The latter does offer VirtualBox, but there seems something wrong with the networking components: I could not get a bridged network working: horrible errors at boot time about missing stuff.

Guest Additions

In order to get the Guest Additions installed correctly, I needed

yum install binutils gcc make patch libgomp glibc-headers glibc-devel kernel-headers kernel-devel

Edit: in order to get the installer (of iAS 10.1.40 to work, I needed xorg-x11-deprecated-libs:

yum install xorg-x11-deprecated-libs

/Edit
After telling VirtualBox to load the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso in the "CD Player", I could mount and install:

mount /dev/cdrom /media
cd /media
./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run

From here on, I basically followed these installation instructions.

[root@db10 ~]# groupadd dba10
[root@db10 ~]# groupadd oinstall
[root@db10 ~]# useradd oracle -g oinstall -G dba10 -c "Oracle Software Owner"
[root@db10 ~]# uname -r
2.6.18-164.15.1.el5
[root@db10 ~]# umount /media
[root@db10 ~]# mount -t vboxsf shared /media

Here, I created a permanently Machine Share Folder called "shared", which points to /home/frank/Public. This is where Oracle Installation software resides (via an NFS mount, but that's another story:

sudo mount cubestation:/volume1/Public /home/frank/Public)

I did, however, still need to install openmotif

[root@db10 ~]# yum install openmotif

and add the following lines tot /etc/sysctl.conf:

net.core.rmem_default=262144
net.core.wmem_default=262144
net.core.rmem_max=262144
net.core.wmem_max=262144

Install fest

In order to prevent "Can't connect to X window", just issue the following:

frank@frank-cs03:~$ ssh -X oracle@192.168.1.230
oracle@192.168.1.230's password:
Warning: No xauth data; using fake authentication data for X11 forwarding.
/usr/bin/xauth: creating new authority file /home/oracle/.Xauthority
[oracle@db10 ~]$ cd /media/Oracle/10GR2_Linux/10201_database_linux32/database/
[oracle@db10 database]$ ./runInstaller

After a while of installing there is another point in time to take s snapshot, and declare this a baseline. This is the result:

[oracle@db10 ~]$ sqlplus system

SQL*Plus: Release 10.2.0.5.0 - Production on Sat May 8 17:53:06 2010

Copyright (c) 1982, 2010, Oracle. All Rights Reserved.

Enter password:

Connected to:
Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.5.0 - Production
With the Partitioning, Oracle Label Security, OLAP, Data Mining
and Real Application Testing options

SQL>

And yes, patch 4 (10.2.0.5) is out!

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is here... and Oracle?

And I'm somewhat disappointed.

Install woes

I tried installing on a separate disk, a 300GiB Samsung 321KJ.
The first installation attempt failed in the cleaning up phase, at 89%.
The second attempt failed with a read error, and the advice to clean my CD lens or move to a colder area.
Fourth attempt, after checking the installation CD for errors: ditto.
Fifth attempt, other disk (same brand, model and age): ditto.

Most annoying is the lack of feedback on the install proces, and even CTRL-[Funtion keys 1-4] will not display a text box with your error (or standard) output.

Alas...and an alternative install

Gave up on installing 10.04 off a CD. Installed 9.10 (which took about 30 minutes, and went OK), logged on, and allowed the system to update to 10.04 LTS. That took about one-and-a-half hour. Configuring NOT to play that hideous sound on startup, use colors I do NOT dislike, install Thunderbird and VirtualBox and remove IM, Chat and Evolution: another 5 minutes.

Oracle on Ubuntu

I gave up. I did not even try to install any Oracle product on 10.04. Oh, they probably will run, with some tweaking and stuff; after all I managed to get 10G database and Application Server running on 9.10.

But Oracle usually runs on stable versions; once released it looks like it's already falling behind. Therefor I abandoned the idea running Oracle directly under Ubuntu, but use CentOS/RHES instead in virtual machine environments. Ubuntu simply is too much "cuttin' edge" to my liking.
So - now I have a CentOS 5.4 basic Server install with XWindows and that's about it.

Installing CentOS 5.4

I used a net based install. CentOS 5.4 supports FTP and HTTP based installations using a special, only 8.9MB (yup - MegaByte!) bootable install ISO. I discarded about all options, apart from the Server install (no GUI) and XWindows (OUI needs XWindows, although using Ubuntu as Xserver would be possible, too).
Choose a non-expanding virtual disk, as the database and expanding volumes do not mix-and-match. 32GB should do the trick.

Clone your Box

Unfortunately, there's no 'Duplicate' option in VB, so you'll have to do it by hand, which is surprisingly simple: run Export Appliance, followed by Import Applicance. Change the name of the Virtual machine, so you won't end up with two machines with the same name.

Meet db10 - my 10GRel2 database server

Fire it (the cloned machine, not the baseline!) up, change ip-address (/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0, I used 192.168.1.230) and hostname (/etc/hosts, /etc/sysconfig/network, sysctl kernel.hostname=db10) and Bob's your uncle.