Oracle 10g Express Edition installation on Ubuntu

I successfully installed Oracle 10g Express Edition on Ubuntu yesterday. I have listed the steps I followed to install this. It’s pretty simple. The download took around 25 mins and installation took less than 5 minutes on my dual core laptop.
Steps to install:

1. sudo apt-get install gcc make binutils lesstif2 libc6 libc6-dev rpm libmotif3 libaio libstdc++5
2. sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list and add this line at the end. deb http://oss.oracle.com/debian unstable main non-free
3. sudo apt-get update
4. If you get the error “W: GPG error: http://oss.oracle.com unstable Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 2E2BCDBCB38A8516″ then do steps 5 to 7
5. wget http://oss.oracle.com/el4/RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle press enter
6. sudo apt-key add RPM-GPG-KEY-oracle press enter
7. sudo apt-get update
8. sudo apt-get install oracle-xe
9. After the installation is done, issue this command /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure. Keep pressing ENTER to take the default. Select yes for booting when Ubuntu boots (if you want) else select no. It’ll take sometime for the system to configure the database. Wait till it’s done.

You are done. You’ll see a menu Oracle Database 10g Express Edition under Applications (Kubuntu screenshot – Similar for Ubuntu. I did it in Ubuntu, but I didn’t take the screenshot). I’m now happy that I need not boot into Windows to use Oracle. I don’t use Windows except for video conferencing. Video conferencing is still shaky in Linux.

Sites you can refer if you encounter any problem: Oracle.com and Ubuntu Wiki. I didn’t follow any of the steps mentioned in those sites except the ones I have listed above. There is no need to create dba group etc as given in the wiki.

I then downloaded SQL Developer and unzipped it. It created a directory called sqldeveloper. I then issued the following command from that directory:

sh sqldeveloper

It said it couldn’t find JDK 1.5 and asked me to enter the path. I have installed Blackdown Java already, but it didn’t take that. I then downloaded JDK 5 Update 6 and installed it with the following steps:

• sudo apt-get install fakeroot java-package (If you haven’t installed them already)
• fakeroot make-jpkg jdk-1_5_0_06-linux-i586.bin
• sudo dpkg -i jdk-1_5_0_06-linux-i586.bin

I then gave the path of the jdk folder. It took the path and errored out while trying to start the SQL Developer. I have listed the error below:

Unable to find configuration file: jdk.conf
Type the full pathname of a J2SE installation (or Ctrl-C to quit), the path will be stored in ~/.sqldeveloper_jdk
/usr/lib/j2se/1.4
Working directory is /home/arun/sqldeveloper/jdev/bin
Exception in thread “main” java.lang.NullPointerException
at java.util.Hashtable.get(Hashtable.java:333)
at java.util.logging.LogManager.getLogger(LogManager.java:437)
at java.util.logging.Logger.getLogger (Logger.java:228)
at oracle.ide.performance.PerformanceLogger.(PerformanceLogger.java:64)
at oracle.ide.performance.PerformanceLogger.get(PerformanceLogger.java:94)
at oracle.ideimpl.Main.main (Main.java:21)

I’m not sure how to fix this error. I don’t know if it’s caused by Blackdown Java installation (multiple java path). I even tried exporting the path, but it didn’t work. I’m stuck on that. I have to do some more googling and find out.

Update: You need to add your username to the dba group. I forgot to mention it in the steps above. Go to System – Adminstration – Users and Groups. Go to Groups tab and select dba from the left pane. Click on properties (or edit) and add your user name to that group. You need this if you want to manually start and shutdown the database. If you have selected start database while starting Ubuntu, then you may not need this step.