Ok. So let me break away from the Oracle OpenWorld related side of things, and discuss my new adventure. Because of my long interest/affair with Linux (#307589), I picked up a copy of Oracle Unbreakable Linux and decided to install it on my laptop (HP Compaq 6510b).

Here is a bit of my install experience of what I had to do to get to this point, where I’m ready to install the Oracle Database.

My system is setup (now) for a dual boot between both Windows XP Pro & Oracle Linux. I had to repartition my drive (Paragon Partition Manager worked just dandy), start the Oracle Linux install (which is basically a recompiled version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5), created my Linux partitions, selected the Software Development + Web Server package, and let roll. 15-minutes later it was complete. After a reboot I noticed that the X didn’t start (startx). The problem is that the new /etc/X11/xorg.conf (as of RHES 4x) didn’t discover my laptop’ video/display information. So I hacked my way through it and added/modified the Monitor and Screent sections of the xorg.conf. This is part of how my xorg.conf looks:

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Monitor0″
VendorName “HP Monitor”
ModelName “LCD Panel 1280×800″
HorizSync 31.5-82.00
VertRefresh 58.0-75.0
Option “dpms”
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier “Videocard0″
Driver “vesa”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Screen0″
Device “Videocard0″
Monitor “Monitor0″
DefaultDepth 24
# Modes “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “800×600″
SubSection “Display”
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “800×600″
EndSubSection
EndSection

After updating the xorg.conf, issued a startx and voila! Xwindows (gnome) is up and running… Now, on to getting the database installed …. Cheers.

I am spending the week in San Francisco at Oracle’s OpenWorld. This is the “premier” Oracle event. Oracle takes the opportunity to talk about progress (over the years), introduce new products, and discuss its road-map. This years’ event attracted over 43,000 attendees.

San Francisco is a great city to see (that’s later in the week), but my purpose here is to come up to speed on Oracle’s flagship product, their Database, and see how it can be applied/managed better for our customers. The new Oracle Database 11g has a handful of new features including things that stood out in the crowd - at least for me: Database Replay (change management), Fault Diagnosability Infrastructure (similar to the OFA idea), RMAN improvements (such as active database duplication), DataPump enhancements (additional encryption support, AES), tablespace encryption, and statistics improvements to mention a few.

Since I work quite a bit with embedded Oracle installations, I was disappointed to see that Oracle hasn’t made any changes to the way it’s embedded database technology works - besides introducing OracleLite. Well, I take that back. One thing that they’ve done is to update the Embedded Database Readme and Installation docs… Here is one major problem I have with the current process, and it just irks me:

• Ability to deliver the just the install files necessary to support the customer environment, and not the the entire 1.76GB folder!

This is a huge disadvantage if you ever consider delivering the application over the FTP. Besides this “minor” drawback, the embedded database works pretty well - as long as you have all your database maintenance schedules in place.

For today, I’m checking out. Let’s see what tomorrow holds at the Moscone Center… Ciao.