From: cobrien@access2.digex.net (Cary B. O'Brien)
Subject: Oracle Mini-review (was Re: Oracle for Linux available now!)
Date: 10 Oct 1998 17:42:33 -0400

Ok, I signed up for the early adopter Oracle for Linux, and got my CD's about
a week ago.

1) Install went fine. Takes up 290 Megabytes on my Toshiba Lapop (48M ram).

2) Took a while to create the first database.  SGA uses up about 5M of
   ram in the default setup.  

3) You probably need to have Oracle experience or a couple of
   books to get things going.

4) I needed to download 2 patches to get the include files so
   I could compile DBD::Oracle for Perl.  After that build and test went
   flawlessly.

5) The Perl app out of the way, I turned to trying to get Applixware Data
   to talk to Oracle.  No Unix odbc library came with oracle, and the
   one I found wouldn't work.  Bashed around the source code for a while,
   figured out how to start the Oracle listener, and it connects but
   still doesn't work.

6) Note that Applix Data + postodbc + PostgreSQL works pretty well.  I did
   have some problems with NULL clauses and selects with HAVING in the
   tutorial, but I can dump selects into spreadsheets and reports without
   typing a word of sql (Not that it is all that hard).

-- cary

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