C[omp]ute

From: "andrew cooke" <andrew@...>

Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:22:50 -0400 (CLT)

I have Oracle running on OpenSuse (64bit x86 Linux).  Until recently I
didn't know this was possible, but in fact it seems to work just fine
(although it can eat up memory).

All you need to do is follow the instructions at
http://en.opensuse.org/Oracle_on_openSUSE .  In particular, install the
package that is mentioned there and, if you are running a 64bit system,
install the 32bit C compiler(!).

The Oracle documentation is good, once you get used to the style (although
it does contain a few minor errors).  In particular I found the "2 day
DBA" document useful (look in the docs directory of the unpacked Oracle
application).

The Oracle download page is here -
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/index.html .  You may have to
register, but it's free for development use.

To get cx_Oracle (the Python database lib for Oracle) working you need to
make sure that (1) ORACLE_HOME points to the correct place (ie the same as
the value defined for your oracle user, created during installation) and
(2) that the tnsnames.ora file is world readable (this was the source of
almost a day of frustration for me).  Those may only be necessary because
I was not using a more sophisticated naming service (LDAP or whatever).

(When I say "works just fine", it took me the best part of a couple of
days to get working, but I am new to Oracle, and it is something of a
beast).

Andrew