Oracle 8i for Linux Question

[rafen]

Anybody running this? I saw it on the shelf at fry's, and thought it would be cool to have, but being a newbie I was wondering what the requirement for a 'server' meant; would it have to be on it's own box or could I use part of my hard drive for it and keep my other OS's on their own partitions? I'd like to fool around with a database, and I thought $89 sounded cheap for Oracle.

[per©oDåN]

$89 ain't bad for O8iLite, but I wouldn'e have bought it... it is a way small footprint, like for PDA's & stuff... ABout all you get w/ it is SQL Plus... None of the server mgmt stuff... If you really wanna get into db stuff, get a free implementation that's close to ansi standard, like MySQL (if'n yer running LINUX), and fool around with that... Learn SQL, then say you're a student and Oracle will basically give you a copy or Oracle 8 or 8i (even Enterprise!!) for cheap, free, or shipping costs... depends on how you approach it... Oracle really rawks, so it's a good thing to know... I'm still getting that head spinning thing going on, and I've been at it a year...

BTW: The Oracle db engine resides on the same sys you install on, as I remember (& especially with LINUX), it installs some desktop tools at the same time by default. Oracle is not an OS if that's what you were getting @. You connect to it [traditionally] via *SQLNet*. Even on the local machine.

AlsoBTW: If you ever get into Oracle deep, get TOAD.

[cotfessi]

You can go to Oracle's website and download a full version of 8i (not the Lite version) for linux -- it's free. I found it to be pretty difficult to install. Below is a link to a HOWTO regarding installation. I also think that Oracle has some install instructions on their site as well...
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Oracle-8-HOWTO.html

[rafen]

Thanks for the link, and thanks for the input. Hey, if it isn't difficult, it wouldn't be any fun http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

[MkIII_Supra]

Perfect! I have Oracle and SQL next mod! Now I can install it at home and do my homework there instead at school.

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The Dragon is swift and powerful. Beware his wrath...
Not much to say? Then shut the hell up!
http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/MkIIISupra/ (http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/MkIIISupra)

[hswoolve]

I've only successfully downloaded oracle 8i for win98 & NT, but if you go for the linux version, be prepared to let it go for a day or two. I got it at work, and it went at 4.x K/sec. This for over 400 meg of zip file.

[MkIII_Supra]

Cable modem.... slowest download so far 116kbps average 427kbps fastest 639kbps. 400MB bout and hour maybe and hour and a half tops! Love cable modem....

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The Dragon is swift and powerful. Beware his wrath...
Not much to say? Then shut the hell up!
http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/MkIIISupra/ (http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/MkIIISupra)

[MkIII_Supra]

http://technet.oracle.com/software/store/order_start.htm

Okay I just went to Oracle to download the "free" 8i oracle for Linux and it's like $200.00. The link above will show you. So where is the end user "free" version. All I need is enough to do my homework with.

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The Dragon is swift and powerful. Beware his wrath...
Not much to say? Then shut the hell up!
http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/MkIIISupra/ (http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/MkIIISupra)

[vv_2010]

I got an unexpected 11 CD package for around $60. I HAD to pay the $60 because for more than 3 weeks I tried UNSUCCESSFULLY to download their "free" version - mind you from a Nortel Networks location among others, I guess there were some other problems than bandwidth.

Anyway it seems that Oracle is charging a symbolic fee for most of the products for Linux (among the 11 CDs - Oracle 8i Enterprise Edition, Oracle Enterprise Manager, a Client 8.0 for WinNt and Linux, Diagnostics Pack, Tuning Package, WebDB, 2 Documentation CDs, and so on). SO, there's quite a bunch.

I remember I had a few problems during the install - for whatever reason, Linux did not install the JVM and I had to go back to the jre rpms; after that it worked just fine. Another problem was a poor excuse of a video card that shared 8M of RAM, so that Oracle saw only 120 M of RAM and cancelled the install faster than I could realize what was happening.

About ORACLE itself, I heard many people saying that ORACLE on Linux is the best combination ever... mySQL is a good alternative until you have a reasonable number of records in your database.

That's about it,
Dan

[rafen]

The boxed set wanted 128MB ram, 256MB if you want to use the Java Virtual Machine. It's a large box, forgot how many CD's, but it wanted a server, so I've got to figure out how to configure a server and my 3 OS's on the same hard drive. I know NOTHING about DB's, which is why I want it; the market for Net Admin's is dropping, everybody and their mother has a cert or two now, so DBA and DB programming is looking good now, though somewhat arcane to me, and I'd rather have the software at home rather than rely on crappy school equipment. I'd also rather have the cd's so I can reinstall and reconfigure everything without having to spend half my computer life downloading this and that so even at $89 I figure it'll save hundreds of hours of my time.

[klamath]

get a free implementation that's close to ansi standard, like MySQL

/me falls over laughing
MySQL is nice, but it's NOT anywhere near ANSI SQL (i.e. SQL92, SQL99, whatever). PostgreSQL is a lot closer, but not perfect: www.postgresql.org (http://www.postgresql.org)

If you want to play around with an RDBMS, I'd recommend something like PostgreSQL or Interbase. Both free, and open source.

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- Klamath
Get my GnuPG Key Here (http://klamath.dyndns.org/mykey.asc)
Looking for an open source project to contribute to? Check out the BBB (http://bbb.sourceforge.net)

[pdc]

I have IBM's DB/2 loaded on my home linux system. Worked fine with 64meg of RAM. To do Oracle or DB/2 or any other DB properly, you should create separate file systms for the db "root" (where alert logs and stuff are written), for tablespaces/containers and for the logs.

For just goofing aound, your probably don't need to get fancy, but a whole bunch of inserts while fooling around could lead to a full file system from logging or inserting. I think DB/2 is easier to recover from when logs become full, but both can be a headache.

Logging is something you will HAVE to do in most production shops, so playing around with it at home can be a good learning experience. For Oracle, you need to alter the database to set archivelogmode on. For DB/2 you need to update the db config with "update db cfg for db db_name using logretain on" or something like that. Once logging is enabled, you have to backup the db and then figure out how to handle the logs over time.

Paul

[stiles]

Originally posted by klamath:
MySQL is nice, but it's NOT anywhere near ANSI SQL (i.e. SQL92, SQL99, whatever). PostgreSQL is a lot closer, but not perfect: www.postgresql.org (http://www.postgresql.org)

If you want to play around with an RDBMS, I'd recommend something like PostgreSQL or Interbase. Both free, and open source.


How dare you say that http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif , everybody knows that .... Oracle is the closest to being .*. compliant. MySql is a joke, I mean they actually consider that they have atomic inserts without transactions (http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_Compatibility.html#Missing_Transactions). Wow ground braking reasons on why not to use a relational (http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_Compatibility.html#Broken_Foreign_KEY) database server http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/rolleyes.gif . So you think postgresql is slow (http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20001112.php3), well every new benchmark disagrees, maybe you should reconsider your viewpoint?

I'm not saying that PostgreSQL is all that, but at least their developers understand what is required of a RDBMS. Just take a look at what pgsql is projecting as their replication server solution (http://www.erserver.com/), compaired to MySQL's (http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_Replication.html). Make no mistake PostgreSQL isn't concerned with MySQL (they are rather insignificant), they are going after Oracle without a doubt, and have a very good chance of catching them and surpassing them.

Actually I find all the benchmarks to be very partial to MySQL because they don't expose MySQL's major weakenss of not supporting stored procedures (http://www.mysql.com/documentation/mysql/bychapter/manual_Compatibility.html#Missing_Triggers), but even with that not considered MySQL is sucking wind (if the benchmarks took this advantage of PostgreSQL, it would be shamefull the margin that PostreSQL would have over MySQL, and on a note of good design, if your making a database backed website and you are not using stored procs, well you are not too experienced).

Some may be wondering why I'm ranting so hard on this, and I'll answer you straight up, MySQL developers are not becoming about their products capabilities, to the point that I believe that they are engaging in a misinformation campaign (or are totaly ignorant, which I find even worse than lying). When they define an atomic action (an all or nothing action) as not including a rollback (what happens if a group of insterts can not compleate as is, and can not rollback? should that be called atomic, well by MySQL's docs, yes, even though your in limbo in that situation), then I have a problem with that. Then calling their product a RDBMS and not supporting forigen keys, which is an relational constraint, which in theory dates back to the late 1960's http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/rolleyes.gif , before microprocessors even had the power to run databases. I really could go on, but I think people should get the idea of where this it going.


[This message has been edited by stiles (edited 23 November 2000).]

[bugfix]

Oracle isn't that compliant and it doesn't have to be because its the market leader. It doesn't try that hard and in many cases is only compliant to SQL89 which really bugs the hell out of me. For example it doesn't support the 'domain' function which really shouldn't be that hard to implement, they've had 11 years to do it. Grr. In praise tho' I've yet to see either SQL+ or Form Builder crash. I have seen the server fall over when too many connections are being requested simaltanouesly tho'.

[This message has been edited by bugfix (edited 23 November 2000).]

[stiles]

bugfix, no RDBMS is 100% SQL92 complient (I'm 99% sure that's an acurate statement). If you want take a look that this draft of SQL92 (http://ftp.digital.com/pub/standards/sql/), yep that's over 5MB's of text in the standard.

[per©oDåN]

RE: ansi standard implementations... I have heard you yell at sweede for stating it's close to the ansi standard, I just meant anything that you can run SQL up against from a client or script to train/play with. I slipped up saying that, I guess, but I'm not really that experienced with it..

RE: Downloading... The Bandwidth is probably throttled on the ORACLE end, so no matter how you connect, you won't be seeing a big stream.

RE: Stored proceedures... I agree. Even though I am not a superuser or even an everyday usere, I don't see how an enterprise (or even a midsized Web presence) could survive without [at least an equivalent to] stored procs.

BTW: Oracle is extremely picky about their licensing scheme, yet once you've got it, it's mostly honor system... sheesh... They catch you per connection, per processor at first, yet they have no real tracking form their end that you are not exceeding these limits... OK... hmmm... I'll stop there and just say this: Be careful about exactly what you tell them/ask for at first... Just be as non-descript as possible, or they'll scrutinize your setup like the richest meiser...

[larryliberty]

I bought the Oracle 8i for Linux Starter Kit at Borders for $50. It installed fine. The Database Assistant hangs up, but it's not really needed because it just makes some scripts and runs them, which you could just as easily do yourself.



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Democracy: Two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner.
Constitutional Republic: Same as above, but lamb's not on the menu (unless the wolves are really hungry).

[bugfix]

Originally posted by stiles:
bugfix, no RDBMS is 100% SQL92 complient (I'm 99% sure that's an acurate statement). If you want take a look that this draft of SQL92 (http://ftp.digital.com/pub/standards/sql/), yep that's over 5MB's of text in the standard.

I know this, but Its just that ORACLE is less compliant than most, IMO. I know there's various standards of compliance entry, intermediate and full and most RDBMS' only meet entry. Too me the whole SQL standard thing has gone a bit Pete Tong (rhyming slang for 'wrong'.) I'll read those 5Mb's later. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif

[rafen]

Oracle itself admits it meets less than half the requirements laid out in the 60's and early 70's for the 'perfect' database engine; some because of hardware issues, others because of programming and customization issues.