Ivan Kartik - Oracle and Linux Blog

Is your HW good for Linux?

01 September, 2007

I found interesting website located at http://hardware4linux.info. It is a web site to lookup and report hardware compatibility and incompatibility with Linux distributions. This site works in a collaborative way. You can download and install Hardware4Linux collector and collect the your hardware configuration. Then you can upload the data and rate the compatibility.

First installation of 11g

20 August, 2007

I found some free time (not so much in these days) to try fresh release of Oracle Database 11g (released few days ago). So I took some free machine with certified Linux and downloaded 1.7 GB installation archive from well known site. Then I've installed all required packages (surprise #1: some of the RPM packages aren't required anymore). At first look nothing has changed in OUI (just background image). Installation went without problems and the SW was installed in a while.

I noticed that diag directory has been created in my $ORACLE_BASE directory but I didn't pay attention to it for that moment. After succesfull install I've decided create the database manually, so I created my own init.ora with common parameters along with other files (as orapw file and custom database creation script). Issued "startup nomount" and as usually watched output from "tail -f alert.log" in other terminal. Suddenly there new message appeared in output (suprise #2): "Thu Aug 16 17:22:41 2007 WARNING: The background_dump_dest init.ora parameter has been deprecated. WARNING: Please remove the background_dump_dest parameter from the init.ora file. WARNING: The diagnostic_dest init.ora parameter now determines the location of the diagnostic data WARNING: The new location for the background logs and traces is /opt/oracle/diag/rdbms/orcl/ORCL/trace Thu Aug 16 17:22:41 2007 WARNING: The user_dump_dest init.ora parameter has been deprecated. WARNING: Please remove the user_dump_dest parameter from the init.ora file. WARNING: The diagnostic_dest init.ora parameter now determines the location of the diagnostic data WARNING: The new location for the user logs and traces is /opt/oracle/diag/rdbms/orcl/ORCL/trace". Time to check the New Features Guide... I found that background_dump_dest and user_dump_dest were replaced by new parameter diagnostic_dest (yes, the diag directory...). So I changed the parameters, started instance and created the database and EM repository. I found that alert.log is not plan text anymore but it became little "well formed" - so now it is XML (surprise #3). But there is still option how to read alert.log as plain text. For this purpose here is new utility adrci which has many features and of course this one. So instead of 
tail -f alertORCL.log
you need now execute following: 

[oracle@ika ~]$ adrci
ADRCI: Release 11.1.0.6.0 - Beta on Mon Aug 16 22:01:28 2007
Copyright (c) 1982, 2007, Oracle.  All rights reserved.
ADR base = "/opt/oracle/admin"
adrci> show alert -tail -f
One thing that I don't understand is why Oracle guys made the adrci utility comfortable such as SQL*Plus (I mean not so comfortable). Well another tool for good old rlwrap. Btw look at the banner: ADRCI: Release 11.1.0.6.0 - Beta on Mon Aug 16 22:01:28 2007. Maybe Oracle guys forgot something (maybe not but it is little surprising when the "Beta" word occurs in final release). Oracle 11g brings new features (and of course EM got face lifting too :-D ) so don't wait and check the New Features Guide. As usually, I have prepared the installation paper. It's valid for Enterpise Linux 4,5 (shipped by Oracle) and also for Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5. You can find it here:http://ivan.kartik.sk/oracle/install_ora11gR1_elinux.html (and of course in the right menu of this page).

New "extras" repository for RedHat EL and clones

31 July, 2007

Fedora project has created new repository for "extras" packages for RHEL and clones such us Centos or Scientific Linux under name EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux). "EPEL is a volunteer-based community effort from the Fedora project to create a repository of high-quality add-on packages that complement the Fedora-based Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and its compatible spinoffs such as CentOS or Scientific Linux. EPEL was started because many Fedora contributors wanted to use the Fedora packages they maintain on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and its compatible derivatives". Goal of EPEL is "Make high quality packages that have been developed, tested, and improved in Fedora available for RHEL and compatible derivatives such as CentOS and Scientific Linux". Relevant links: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL http://www.linux.com/feature/118304 http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2007-July/084398.html

Last week news: Centos 5 released, CPU patch

24 April, 2007

New CentOS Linux 5 version was released for i386 (x86) ad x86_64 architectures. More info at: www.centos.org. Linux.com has published good review of new release. Oracle Critical Patch Update - April 2007 was released. More info you can find here. Catched from OTN forums Interesting tip: Hans Forbrich has posted workaround for Enteprise Manager when you want use export|import of tnsnames to|from OID. Funny/Dummy post of the week (maybe better of month :-) ): Forum user: "Oracle is the devil itself" No comment necessary...

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