Installing Oracle 9.2.0.1.0 Client on Gentoo 1.4

neoTheCat · n00b Joined: 30 Jun 2002 Posts: 40

hello.

i am having a huge problem installing Oracle 9.2.0.1.0 Client on Gentoo 1.4. i followed most of directions on http://www.puschitz.com/OracleOnLinux.shtml, mainly the dirs to setup and the env vars, but i keep getting this weird behavior.

First, it asks me twice for the Installation Types. After my second time of selecting Client->runtime, it gives me the following error:

Error: A runtime exception occured while setting s_operatingSystemnull in component Oracle9i Client 9.2.0.1.0 . Installation cannot continue for this component.

and then it asks if i would like to continue or exit. either choice, it just exits....

any help would be appreciated at all,
thank ahead of time,
-- neoTheCat

ebrostig

rizzo · Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2002 6:10 pm Post subject:

son of a bitch.

I guess I should have thought of this. Well there goes 2 days down the drain. :p

drumz · Apprentice Joined: 10 Nov 2002 Posts: 213

I beg to differ. I have had Oracle 9i running under the Gentoo 1.4 release candidate for quite some time now on my laptop.

I haven't looked at the install instructions posted in one of the previous posts to see what it says, but I'm a DBA by day and experienced only one minor issue getting it installed. During the linking process a dialog box comes up stating that a link failed. At that point you drop over to a shell window, edit a specific make file, return to the dialog box and click on the 'Retry' button. It then proceeds along without a hitch. The info should be available up at the technet.oracle.com (free registration required) in the forums area (I'll be happy to see if I can find it again if anyone wants it).

Drumz

drumz · Apprentice Joined: 10 Nov 2002 Posts: 213

Forgot one thing:

I initially had a problem during the install - it would lock up during the install at certain points. The extraction of the archives didn't indicate any errors (corrupted download from Oracle), but after redownloading the 2nd cd the problem went away for me and the next time I ran the installer it worked perfectly.

This was all started under a fresh install of Gentoo 1.4rc_1, which has been 'emerge --update world' on a regular basis.

Drumz

rizzo · Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2002 2:09 pm Post subject:

Hmmm ... son of a bitch (again). Oh well I can't spend any more time re-re-formatting my box. :p

ebrostig · Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2002 8:43 pm Post subject: Re: Oracle 9i under Gentoo 1.4rc

drumz · Apprentice Joined: 10 Nov 2002 Posts: 213

Ok, it finally appears that my install is now broken (I've 'emerge --update...' a bunch of times since I last started it). It WAS working when I had installed it under Gentoo 1.4rc_1 (clean install). Client stuff (SQL*Plus to another box I have) IS working fine even right now - I verified I was able to connect to another remote box.

Boy does this put a crimper in my plans on using my laptop for some OCI development I was planning....

Anyhow, the listener starts up fine and I can check the status fine and shut it down.

When attempting to startup the database itself, the startup command issues fine and the drive starts to churn like it's going to startup. Then it just sits there, never to return (the 'startup' command in SQL*Plus that is).

It IS allocating memory though, a quick execution of the ipcs command shows the memory segments......

Anyhow, my current glibc is: 2.3.1-r2.

Gonna keep poking at it since I'm a stubborn.

Drumz

drumz · Apprentice Joined: 10 Nov 2002 Posts: 213

Whoops, forgot to include: When I installed Oracle 9i I performed a full database install (customized to include/not include certain options I did/did not want) with client libraries, etc.

In fact, I did a custom database during the install so I could tweak the database parameters to what I needed......

Drumz

drumz · Apprentice Joined: 10 Nov 2002 Posts: 213

Ok, I'm befuddled. I can fully understand why ebrostig has problems (assuming of course that my initial install of 1.4rc1 had the older compiler when I initially intalled Oracle which it probably did at that time - emerge --update has upgraded it to the 3.2.1 version).

This begs the question that if it was working then, why am I getting the same error message:

SQL> connect / as sysdba
Connected to an idle instance.
SQL> startup

ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel
SQL>

It should work fine since it hasn't been relinked since that initial install and it was working then. Unless something else installed/upgraded in the 'emerge --update' since then has caused a problem.

Drumz (glad I run it under Solaris at work - don't get me wrong, I love gentoo/linux, but it drives me nuts that Oracle keeps breaking or you can't do a straight install without having to tweak something differntly all the time).

drumz · Apprentice Joined: 10 Nov 2002 Posts: 213

Now that I've been unable to sleep

, annoyed by the fact that my Oracle install is no longer working......

Since it was originally working when installed, my problem can't be related to the new gcc. Must be new glibc.

Isn't there a way to have multiple versions of the same package installed under portage at the same time? If so, is this possible with an OS critical package like glibc?

Drumz

drumz · Apprentice Joined: 10 Nov 2002 Posts: 213

Hoping that a simple downgrade of glibc would do the trick since I had the database working before, I did that, did an ldconfig, rebooted and ended up with the same results.

I wonder what it is that's causing it not to start since it worked originally.....

Drumz

drumz · Apprentice Joined: 10 Nov 2002 Posts: 213

Well, it's with much sadness that I must report that after spending an entire day of tweaking my system in order to get Oracle 9i running again that the system became completely unrecoverable.

So, knowing that others have been unable to get 9i installed and working (even just the client stuff) under the current versions, and that my 9i install that originally worked before I 'emerge -u world' something that inadvertantly broke it, I am returning to using Redhat on my laptop (and returning to the rpm h3** (and manual compilation/installation/maintenance of many tools I use that don't come in RPM format) that I happily left behind after discovering Gentoo).

I am totally thrilled with Gentoo. Ability to custom compile for a specific machine (speed increase!!!), easy package management (portage), very easy installation of everything I use in my day to day tasks (portage again!), and constant updates with a super easy upgrade capability (portage once again!!). Complete and total control over the entire system. Gentoo is what I believe an OS should be: It just works, is stable, and easily maintained, but still with the ability to 'get your fingers dirty' if you want to - and only if you want to.

But, Oracle is something I need. I really have no choice but to return to an environment that for this single item is more supportive of it. There's probably a way of tweaking portage to work around the problem, but on my PIII laptop the install/getting extras I need installed takes too long.

Hopefully I'll be able to return to Gentoo in a not too distant future. At the very least if I get another box not requiring an Oracle install it'll definitely be running Gentoo. And for an open source project I'm working on (not released to the world yet) we'll be recommending Gentoo for many parts of the architecture :-)

.

Until next time,
Drumz

rizzo · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2003 3:17 am Post subject:

Uhh are you just talking about gentoo 1.4 RC1? Because I can install the Oracle 9i (9.0.1) client just fine on gentoo 1.2. I haven't tried the latest 9.2 branch yet.

I hadn't really been following all your posts recently but I was under the impression that you were just trying to get it to work with gcc3.

drumz · Apprentice Joined: 10 Nov 2002 Posts: 213

That's correct, the problem is under Gentoo 1.4 rc1.

Under an initial, new, fresh install of Gentoo 1.4 rc1 when it originally came it my installation (9.2 version) worked fine - I was tickled pink.

Somewhere along the line since then, something has been upgraded that caused my 9i install to break - but just the database itself. I could still connect to remote machines using the client stuff (SQL*PLUS) perfectly fine.

I'm definitley planning to return to Gentoo sometime in the future when I'll be able to get Oracle running under it again.

Drumz

ebrostig · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2003 8:32 pm Post subject:

Folks,

Let me say this for the last time (probably not but...

):

1. Oracle 9i client under Gentoo 1.4 with gcc 3.x
You should be able to use it as a client, if anything fails, too bad.

2. Oracle 9i database under Gentoo 1.4 with gcc 3.x.
Will not work. Ever! Periode. End of story!
The ora-3113 seen during startup of a database is actually just telling you that you lost contact with the dedicated server process. This process dies with an ora-7445 (core dump). The problem lies, as I stated in one of my earlier posts that Oracle is compiled with gcc 2.95 and using gcc 3.x under Gentoo to relink Oracle works all the way up until you start using some of the shared memory functionality.

3. Oracle 9i with Gentoo 1.2 and gcc 2.95
Both database and client works fine.

Oracle has never and will never certify the databases with Gentoo. The only 2 distributiuons currently certified with Oracle 9i is RedHat Advanced Server 2.1 and SuSE SLES 7.1

Don't ever try to create a TAR with Oracle on any other Linux distribution as the only answer you will get from us is: Please move to a certified platform!"

Erik
_________________
'Yes, Firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'

rizzo · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2003 8:36 pm Post subject:

ebrostig · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2003 9:03 pm Post subject:

rizzo · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2003 9:10 pm Post subject:

"We"?

Do you work for Oracle?

ebrostig · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2003 9:12 pm Post subject:

rizzo · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2003 9:20 pm Post subject:

Ah. Just wanted to make sure of my sources.

Can you send me any free shirts?

ebrostig · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2003 9:23 pm Post subject:

rizzo · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2003 9:26 pm Post subject:

Then just whatever you have in your closet at home will be fine. I'm desparate for clothes.

ebrostig · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2003 9:47 pm Post subject:

rizzo · Posted: Thu Jan 02, 2003 9:51 pm Post subject:

Yeah that's what I wanted. Just YOUR clothes.

OK this is off-topic enough.