[wplug] Oracle on RH 8 (was: Entertaining)

Sun Feb 9 15:00:27 EST 2003

Bob Schmertz wrote:
> On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 18:53, Vanco, Donald wrote:
>> At the risk of again asserting myself...
>> 
>> Oracle is not supported on RH 8.0, so there's not much point in
>> discussing the functionality.  That being said - you can run
>> multiple versions of libraries and provide functionality for (some
>> apps). Oracle does quite a bit of re-linking, so this might not be
>> the case. 
>> 
>> J. Aaron made a better point with his comment re: RH AS and SuSE -
>> that's all current & future versions of Oracle are going to be
>> supported on. 
>> 
>> A far as what the next release of Advanced Server will be based on
>> (3.1 - due mid/late summer) I would be astounded to see it _not_
>> come out based on 
>> 3.x.  While I don't know a whole lot aboot it yet, I do know among
>> it's many new features will be a clustered filesystem.
>> 
>> You can rest assured that Oracle will be supported at release time.
> 
> "Oracle will be supported"... would that be the current version or a
> new for-RHAS3 version?  I know you don't work for Oracle, so wild
> speculation is welcome... 
	Well, Oracle has a lifespan timeline for all of their products.  I
would expect at a minimum that the current database, application server, and
cluster products will be supported.  I would further expect that efforts
would be in place to support all "currently supported" (legacy) Linux
products Oracle has available within a short time.  I would be surprised to
see Oracle release an "Advanced Server" only product, but they have stated
clearly that Advanced Server is the only product from RH they will certify
against.  Likewise for SuSE's server product.

> 
>> 
>> Red Hat is also currently baking Advanced Workstation (IA-32 only)
>> and Advanced Server ES (IA-32 only) which will be aimed at the
>> "network edge" device - it has no clustering capability as AS does.
>> 
>> The coming RH AS 3.1 will support IA-32 and IA-64, and I am really
>> hoping PowerPC as well.
> 
> Red Hat has so far never released anything for PowerPC... have you
> heard any rumors?  
Oh boy.....
BZZZT!
The current product offerings from Red Hat Linux include (but are not
limited to): 
 Red Hat Linux 8.0 Personal 
 Red Hat Linux 8.0 Professional 
 Red Hat Linux Advanced Server (with several iterations of support) 
 Red Hat Linux 8.0 Manuals 
 Red Hat Linux 7.1 for iSeries (partitioned)
 Red Hat Linux 7.1 for pSeries (PowerPC native and partitioned)
 Red Hat Linux 7.1 for zSeries (partitioned)
 Red Hat Linux for S/390 (same as above, but not zOS)
 Red Hat Linux 7.2 for the Itanium Processor 
 Red Hat Database 
 Red Hat Stronghold Secure Web Server 

...that being said, several of these you cannot get off the shelf at
MicroCenter, the PPC release being one of them.

For details on what these packages offer in terms of content and support
please see: 
http://www.redhat.com/products/ 

While trivial, I'll also mention that there is a 64-bit Advanced Workstation
right now for H-P Itanium II platforms, but you can only get it with the
purchase of an H-P Itanium II.  I have it from a very good source that it's
merely AS 2.1 compiled for IA-64 stripped of clustering and given a new
splash screen.

> I'd bet they'd make it for Sparc before they do PPC
	Been there, done that, got the ISOs.  RH dropped the SPARC port
circa 6.1 or 6.2.  Sun were being buttholes.

>> 
>> The product that is RH8.0 today is heading for support / sales as a
>> desktop only product.  Don't expect to see a lot of Enterprise class
>> apps being supported on it. 
>> 
>> Bob - you can recompile the kernel even in Advanced Server - so there
>> shouldn't be any reason you can't get what you need working unless
>> it's totally fringe or only part of the development kernel.
> 
> I've already done that, but once you do that your OS is no longer a
> certified Advanced Server,
...OOOOH - there's juicy tidbit our RH marketing guy never passed on.  So -
lemme guess - to get a patch supported you have to pay Red Hat Consulting
Services 5 figures to run "make" for you?

> and if you need support from Oracle and
> they find out you're not running a RHAS kernel provided/compiled by
> Red Hat... well, you can guess the rest.
	Indeed.  Wow - that's a bite in the can.  I suppose I can appreciate
that though - having spent many cycles trying to duplicate customer issues
you have to draw the line somewhere when it comes to trying to work on a
thoroughly tested / known base system.  We've got one customer right now
that has a bunch of Intel based systems rebooting every 6 or 7 hours - a
problem I have not been able to duplicate in-house on 2 of the systems they
sent me.  Trying to match their system package-for-package is tough enough
without trying to duplicate a "renegade kernel".  That being said, I can't
see what the issue would be if you're trying to run a kernel built from
pristine RH AS sources - the entire tree is supposedly tested.  I would
think far more damage could be wrought by a user fiddling in /proc/kernel/~
over building a kernel from RH source, but Oracle is Oracle I suppose.
	Particularly interesting in the eyes of IBM hardware running the
Summit chipset (a la the x440)  - the _only_ kernel that works is one built
by IBM and literally shoehorned into the AS CDs at 11:30 the night before
they went "gold" - there wasn't even time to make the installer aware of
them and they must be manually installed post install / prior to reboot.
Even then the kernel sucks and has been revved a couple times already for
various & sundry very bad juju.

>> Don

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Bob Schmertz
>> To: wplug at wplug.org
>> Sent: 2/8/03 5:32 PM
>> Subject: Re: [wplug] Oracle on RH 8 (was: Entertaining)
>> 
>> On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 14:55, J Aaron Farr wrote:
>>> 
>>> --- Bob Schmertz <rschmertz at speakeasy.net> wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 12:50, redtoade wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> 8.0 is a dream.  I have no idea what people are
>>>>> talking about when they consider it to be buggy.
>>>> 
>>>> Has anybody here tried to run any Oracle app -- or any
> binary-only
>> C++
>>>> app that provides shared libraries -- on Red Hat 8.0?
> From what I
>> hear
>>>> about gcc 3.x, there is a binary incompatibility when you try to
>>>> mix shared object libraries from gcc3 with executables from 2.9x
>>>> or vice versa.  This wouldn't be Red Hat's fault, as every
>>>> distribution will have to deal with this compatibility glitch at
>>>> some point, if they haven't done so already.  But it may be a
>>>> disincentive 
> for many to
>> go to
>>>> 8.0.
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Bob Schmertz
>>> 
>>> If you're putting up the cash for an actual Oracle
> instance then your
>> probably
>>> want to go with Red Hat's Advanced Server which will work
> with Oracle
>> and all
>>> the other big guns.  Also, from what I understand SuSE
> has pretty good
>> Oracle
>>> support.
>>> 
>> 
>> Actually, what we're running on Linux are instances of Oracle
>> Application Server, and custom-made Oracle clients that need the
>> Oracle libraries.  We also need some features of the Kernel not
>> found in the version that RHAS ships with, so we're already having
>> difficulty meeting that option.  I was just wondering what would
>> happen if the next version of RHAS was based on gcc 3.x.; would the
>> Oracle libraries stop working? 
>> 
>> --
>> Cheers,
>> Bob Schmertz
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