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This article applies to OEL 5.3.

I recommend you to start with this article to get R12 up and running.

This flavour of Linux is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL5) so if you can’t find the answer here google for RHEL issues instead.

Having played around with this operating system for a while I have to say the only reason I would use this is to get EBS up and running. For any desktop work I will stick to Vista SP1. If you are bitten by a mad Linux I would recommend Ubuntu – but I would not try to install EBS on Ubuntu – stick to OEL. OEL installation failed to recognise video, sound, wireless and Network card amongst others when installing directly on my laptop. Got network up and running by downloading and installing a driver though.

I can recommend installing VirtualBox and installing on an external USB drive to avoid overwriting your existing operating system by accident.

Files

Put all below in same directory on your laptop:

Download:

• Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.3 – OEL (yes, it is certified and all that)
  Enterprise-R5-U3-Server-i386-disc1.iso
  Enterprise-R5-U3-Server-i386-disc2.iso
  Enterprise-R5-U3-Server-i386-disc3.iso
  Enterprise-R5-U3-Server-i386-disc4.iso
  Enterprise-R5-U3-Server-i386-disc5.iso
  from: http://edelivery.oracle.com/linux
• OEL additions (have no idea why they didn’t include this in OEL)
  openmotif21-2.1.30-11.EL5.i386.rpm
  xorg-x11-libs-compat-6.8.2-1.EL.33.0.1.i386.rpm
  binutils-2.17.50.0.6-6.0.1.el5.i386.rpm
  from: http://oss.oracle.com/projects/compat-oracle/files/Enterprise_Linux

Extract OEL libraries from OEL discs (easily done by mounting ISO image in VirtualBox):

• Enterprise-R5-U3-Server-i386-disc3.iso
  libXp-1.0.0-8.1.el5.i386.rpm
  sysstat-7.0.2-3.el5.i386.rpm

From metalink get:

• Download p6078836_101330_LINUX.zip
  from http://metalink.oracle.com search for p6078836

Virtualbox

Create a VirtualBox machine and add all ISO as CD images and select first CD image:

Note the active filter for external USB hard disk.

If you downloaded the files on XP or VISTA then create another Virtualbox machine and install Ubuntu on this so you can transfer files between NTFS and EXT3 partitions.

Install

Start the OEL Vbox machine and boot into the CD:

Click next a few times (pick the options that suit you) until you get to the Partitioning screen:

If you use default setup you will get Logical Volume Manager setup which is less compatible.

I recommend to create 3 fixed partitions:

/ (boot): 10Gb

Swap: 5Gb

/Oracle: around 240Gb (180Gb for VIS and 40 Gb for stage directory)

If you also want the downloaded ISO disc EBS files and OEL files on this add 40Gb and 3Gb

Click next a few more times and pick “software development” as default installation type.

One more next click and the installation starts.

When done OEL want to restart.

Don’t do that – yet.

Shut down the OEL virtual machine.

Patching

This is where it gets complicated.

I used Ubuntu on a USB 8Gb stick to move files around with between NTFS and EXT3 – but you can also use Ubuntu on Virtualbox.

What you need to do is to put the installation and patch files on the new /oracle partition.

I use a subdirectory: /oracle/install

So copy like this is you use Virtualbox and Ubuntu:

BOOT Ubuntu and mount the shared folder:

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/oraclesrc
$ sudo mount –t vboxsf oracle /mnt/oraclesrc

Then copy to the external USB drive.
$ sudo cp –au /mnt/oraclesrc /media/oracle/install

The OEL partition /oracle gets auto mounted into /media

Or if you boot using a Ubuntu USB stick:

$ sudo cp –a /media/oraclesrc /media/oracle/install

REBOOT and boot into OEL

Login as root

All OEL installation should be done as the root user.

You need to install the additional components needed according to Oracle® Applications Installation and Upgrade Notes:

The following i386 packages are not part of the OS distribution media and must be downloaded separately (from http://oss.oracle.com/projects/compat-oracle/files/Enterprise_Linux for both OEL 5 and RHEL 5) and installed manually:

• openmotif21-2.1.30-11.EL5.i386
• xorg-x11-libs-compat-6.8.2-1.EL.33.0.1.i386
• binutils-2.17.50.0.6-6.0.1.i386

The following i386 packages must be installed from the OEL 5 or RHEL 5 distribution media:

• compat-glibc-2.3.4-2.26
• gcc-4.1.2-14.el5
• gcc-c++-4.1.2-14.el5
• glibc-2.5-12
• glibc-common-2.5-12
• glibc-devel-2.5-12
• libgcc-4.1.2-14.el5
• libstdc++-devel-4.1.2-14.el5
• libstdc++-4.1.2-14.el5
• make-3.81-1.1
• gdbm-1.8.0-26.2.1
• libXp-1.0.0-8.1.el5
• libaio-0.3.106-3.2
• libgomp-4.1.2-14.el5
• sysstat-7.0.0-3.el5
• compat-libstdc++-296-2.96-138
• compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-61

The ones I recommended to extract should be enough but if a package is missing – extract it from the CD-ROM ISO file.

You can mount the image using Ubuntu and Virtualbox.

Another way is to mount the ISO file directly in Linux using:

$ mkdir /mnt/cdrom
$ mount –o loop {isofile} /mnt/cdrom
$ cp /mnt/cdrom/server/{rpmname} /oracle/install/oel5.3

This is just tedious work using:

$ rpm –i {rpmname}

But you also need to do it in correct sequence as there is dependencies.

I created a script for this (supplied as is – as I know it is flawed) – see this link

Kernel Update

When booted into OEL you can update the OEK kernel with the following minimum parameters – again from:

Oracle® Applications Installation and Upgrade Notes

First make a backup copy of /etc/sysctl.conf and then modify.

Then to update the kernel run the command:

$ sysctl –p

Then reboot. Yes, that happens in Linux as well.

Hostname and ip

Verify that the /etc/hosts file is formatted as follows:

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

::1 localhost.localdomain localhost

<ip_address> <node_name>.<domain_name> <node_name>

or

<ipv6_address> <node_name>.<domain_name> <node_name>

The last ::1 line is needed for the new sqlnet in 11g – otherwise your connections will slow down making startup and shutdown take forever. All thanks to ipv6.

Verify that the /etc/sysconfig/network file is formatted as follows:

HOSTNAME=<node_name>.<domain_name>

If the /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/default/network file exists, remove it.

If you changed any files in the previous steps, restart the system

Patch 6078836

Unzip /oracle/install/oel5.3/p6078836_101330_LINUX.zip and:

$ cp /oracle/install/oel5.3/6078836/libdb.so.2 /usr/lib

Motif fix

Link to Motif library for Oracle Application Server 10.1.2 (on OEL 5 and RHEL 5 only)

Perform the following command (as root on your system) to update a required link to a Motif library prior to relinking or patching the 10.1.2 Application Server Oracle Home:

$ unlink /usr/lib/libXtst.so.6
$ ln -s /usr/X11R6/lib/libXtst.so.6.1 /usr/lib/libXtst.so.6

Just copy/paste the above lines into a terminal.

Open File Descriptors

In /etc/security/limits.conf  set the following parameters:

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