Choosing a Distribution of Linux
for the Oracle DBA
Oracle 11g currently supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Oracle
Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux and Asianux. Of these, Red Hat
Enterprise Linux (RHEL)probably
has the most name recognition. It is widely used and supported by an
extensive variety of applications.
Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL)
is a relatively new offering from Oracle Corporation. It is largely
based on Red Hat’s offerings but with the added advantage that
support for OEL is available through Oracle, thus consolidating
database and operating system support with one vendor.
Though less recognized than Red Hat, SUSE Linuxpredates it by many years. Originally developed in
Germany and other parts of Europe, the distribution is now
maintained by Novell, Inc.
The Asianuxdistro is a
collaboration between several vendors in Asia. Several Asian
languages are supported and local assistance is available to Asian
customers.
Choosing the Linux Version
Oracle 11g supports RHEL 4 or 5, OEL 4 or 5, Asianux 2 or 3 and
SUSE SLES10. Oracle occasionally changes their supported versions.
An up-to-date list of platforms, distros and versions can be found
in Oracle Support (formerly Metalink) note 169706.1. This note also
lists supported Linux versions, distros and platforms for older
Oracle versions.
Between Oracle’s limitations and any additional requirements,
other software may only have a few viable choices for platform,
distribution and version. Budget, support and experience will
further contribute to these choices, but when possible, it is best
to should tendlean toward the latest version that will meet your
requirements.
Where to Get Linux
If a new system is being bought, Red Hat Linux may be
preinstalled by the hardware vendor. This will save the time of
installing it and the system will come with appropriate drivers for
all the hardware preinstalled.
If the intent is to install Red Hat
on an existing system, then buy it from a software vendor, but it is
probably easiest to purchase it directly from Red Hat at
www.redhat.com. There, a license can be purchased for RHEL
support, disks, or download disk images of the software to burn
disks. The site includes detailed instructions that describe how to
burn these disk images to CDs or a DVD in order to install it on a
system. Depending on the licensing, there may be access to several
different versions and platforms of RHEL. Make sure to download the
appropriate version for the chosen hardware.
Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL)
is available directly from Oracle. The software can be purchased in
disk form from the Oracle store or disk images can be downloaded so
that disks can be burned. To download OEL, go to the same page that
is used to download other Oracle software:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/index.html. OEL is
listed under “Enterprise Linux”. This leads to a page where
Enterprise Linux can be downloaded or where a choice can be made
from several Oracle VM options.
Under most circumstances, it is preferable to download Enterprise
Linux. The Oracle VMs are for use with virtualization servers and
offer operating system installations with popular software packages
such as Oracle Databaseor Oracle
Application Serverpreinstalled.
To purchase a license and support, talk to the Oracle sales
representative. If you are only looking to learn about or try out
OEL, download it from oracle.com for free! This is a great
opportunity to learn more about Linux without the expense of a
license.
