Configure the Kernel

Oracle 9i requires that you at least temporarily increase the maximum shared memory segment size for installation. To temporarily increase the maximum shared memory segment size, follow these instructions (as root):

> echo "1073741824" > /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax

Install Java

Oracle 8.1.6 and 8.1.7 use a Java-based graphical installer. You should download jre118_v3-glibc-2.1.3.tar.bz2 (not a newer version) from blackdown and execute the following commands as root.

> mv jre118_v3-glibc-2.1.3.tar.bz2 /usr/local
> cd /usr/local
> bunzip2 jre118_v3-glibc-2.1.3.tar.bz2
> tar xf jre118_v3-glibc-2.1.3.tar
> ln -s jre118_v3 java
> rm jre118_v3-glibc-2.1.3.tar

Set Up the Environment

Add the following line to /home/oracle/.bashrc near the bottom:

> export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5

Install Compatibility Packages

RedHat provides glibc 2.1 compatability RPM's that can be used on any Linux that comes with glibc 2.2. These RPM's can be downloaded from rpmfind.

- compat-glibc-6.2-2.1.3.2.i386.rpm for RedHat Linux 7.2
- compat-egcs-6.2-1.1.2.16.i386.rpm for RedHat Linux 7.2
- binutils-2.11.90.8-9.src.rpm for RedHat Linux 7.2 (note that this is a source RPM, not a binary RPM.

Slackware

On Slackware, you'll need to install RPM. The RPM package is available from ftp.slackware.com. You can install it using installpkg. Once RPM is installed, log in as root and run the following command to initialize the RPM database.

> rpm --initdb

To install the compat-RPM's run the following commands:

> rpm -i --nodeps compat-glibc-6.2-2.1.3.2.i386.rpm
> rpm -i --nodeps compat-egcs-6.2-1.1.2.16.i386.rpm
> rpm -i --nodeps binutils-2.11.90.0.8-9.src.rpm
> cp /usr/src/rpm/SOURCES/binutils-2.11.90.0.8.tar.bz2 /root
> cd /root
> bunzip2 binutils-2.11.90.0.8.tar.bz2
> tar xf binutils-2.11.90.0.8.tar
> cd binutils-2.11.90.0.8
> cp /usr/src/rpm/SOURCES/binutils-2.11.90.0.4-glibc21.patch .
> patch -p1 < binutils-2.11.90.0.4-glibc21.patch
> configure --prefix=/usr/local/binutils-glibc21
> make
> make install

If you don't get any errors, you should end up with a directory called /usr/local/binutils-glibc21 containing everything necessary to link Oracle against the glibc-2.1 provided by the compat-RPM's.

Now edit /home/oracle/.bashrc and add the following command near the bottom.

> . /usr/i386-glibc21-linux/bin/i386-glibc21-linux-env.sh