Oracle: Database for Debian

GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide
by Graham Williams

Oracle: Database for Debian

Installing Oracle on Debian has involved obtaining the Oracle tar file, setting up an Oracle user and some Oracle groups, and running the Oracle installation software. We include here a collection of information for installing Oracle 8 and Oracle 10g, with some pointers regarding Oracle 9i. The good news is that since March 2006 Oracle have an apt repository for the unstable (sid) distribution, and have provided the Oracle XE packaged for Debian. It is available from http://oss.oracle.com/debian/.

Additional information is also available from http://openacs.org/doc/openacs-4/oracle.html, http://frits.homelinux.com/wordpress/?p=9, and http://www.davidpashley.com/articles/oracle-install.html.

To install Oracle XE you first need to tell wajig where to obtain the packages from:

$ wajig editsources -> deb http://oss.oracle.com/debian unstable main non-free

Then install the libaio package--since version 10 of Oracle on GNU/Linux asynchronous IO has been the default ``out of the box.''

$ wajig install libaio

Next, install the appropriate Oracle package. If you want just a client, then:

$ wajig install oracle-xe-client

To install the usual Oracle XE server:

$ wajig install oracle-xe

And to install a version of the server that supports needing multibyte character sets inside the database:

$ wajig install oracle-xe-universal

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