As per another post I created my OEL 5 and Centos 5 installations. I have run into a problem I am working through that plagued me with both Centos and OEL. The problem I encountered was that I had originally decided to use various partitions ,eg Unix, Oracle code, database files and other stuff.

I created three virtual disks for VM during the installation and then started installing the OS, in both Centos and OEL I was unable to manage those extra disks without crashing the installer at the point of configuring the disk layout. As the disks are for additional things that the OS did not require. I decided to not use them during the installation and then mount them and update the configuration past the OS installation. This is also not as straight forward to a Unix Linux person as the simple process if mounting the volume using “mount /dev/xdbc /oracle ” does not appear to functions. so next try fdisk and check the volume at that level. I found that the partition is not recognised as a valid partition. When I find an answer to this I will either post if warranted or update this entry.

“That’s easy” I think, change the partition with fdisk and set it as Linux partition type. Then mount it as ext3. Unfortunately it was not successful. In the interests of progressing other parts of my project I have simply rebuilt my vm for Oracle that is to run some testing databases as a 50Gb single partition. It is a test and my learning  environment after all so having to deal with OS issues due to me filling the file system will do just that teach me something.

So next problem arises disk issues with media, oh the fun of it.  I needed to mount an external drive on the server to allow me to install the database software from I found a note here to explain the process of finding and mounting a USB external drive to access in your Virtual Machines.

I have finally gotten around to getting a small but decent Server set up to build a set of Oracle servers on to create some testing environments. To do this I have a with box with an Asus P5KPL-CM motherboard with a Intel E2200 CPU and 4Gb RAM, probably sort of small but this is a start to being able to do some half decent testing of new products.  For reasons not quite clear I tried to do this on Citrix Xen Server. No great drama, download the CD and the Linux Pack and get to installing this was around 300gb in total.

Next was to install Oracle Linux and I also have a Centos Server on this configuration to build non Oracle products Download a few ISO’s and there in is my problem. I should have installed and got Xen working first.  The problem I encountered is that Xen has types of templates it uses to create a build environment for installing various Linuxes and Windows.  I had in my wisdom downloaded Centos 5 Update 3 and Oracle EL 5 update 4. Xen is not able to install either. So two more Downloads and I had the appropriate version of each 5.2 for Centos and Update 2 of OEL.  I am not sure what is involved with the bits required to support newer versions but it is a bug bear when there is nothing obvious about this.

While that was happening I had tried to install Xen on the host in question, cannot recognize the Atheros drivers used on many mother boards.  Most Linux has problems with those. I went back to the computer shop I use FTC in Sunnybank and obtained a network card for it. this time a TP-link with Realtek chipset on board. Xen could see it, it could use it but the driver made this about as flaky as it could be.  So download the driver development kit try and install it to build a better driver. Installation of the VM into the server kept failing due to the flakiness of the river being used. Just to clarify that is probably a fine driver with the correct chipset, I think mine was a borderline case of a match. After a few days of trying out went the TP-link for an alternative. I finally settled on a D-Link 503 which is on the HCL and can be obtained for around $50. Using the Xensource HCL is a must it seems for some of your kit to get this working. In the end it is just plain easier..

So I have succeeded to get 5 update 2 of Centos and OEL installed and have yum updating the installation of OEL as I write this. Should have a 5upd4 install after this is finished, might yet bump that to update 5, but can do that later some time

To get the update to happen you need to link back to the public repository using the following

# cd /etc/yum.repos.d# wget http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-el5.repo

Activate the repositories you want as per the instructions on Public YUM server

Information available from Public YUM Server

Certainly a challenge without a bit of foresight and knowledge learned

See ya round

Peter

The latest release of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala is a dream install, well done guys. I have been using linux since 1995. It was a brutal exercise getting things installed even basics like storage could be a pain and getting an Xserver going was never for the faint of heart. i don’t think I succeeded for some time back them. Time warp forward to today and the ubuntu install was 6 questions, and sit back whilst the installation runs. Now this was onto a VM which limits a a few issues like monitors to choose however the whol process was so straight forward and simple it is probably no longer a tech persons job to install this. I have not tried to install Windows 7 so no comparison is available. I will say for someone wanting to set up a system for people that dont need to be able to run specific Windows application, there is possibly a Linux alternative and there would appear to be little reason to install Windows. This is the sort of desktop product the Linux community has required to place some pressure on Windows as the primary desktop for running applications. I think this could provide computing opportunities for many different places beyond the home user

It may be that in the home of all the computers you only need one with Windows and the rest may be acceptable with Linux using this build of Ubuntu

Well done to the Ubuntu team for a great distribution

Duck over to the Ubuntu site and grab a copy and if you are just interested but not certain then either create a dual boot system a bit more difficult or create a Virtual Machine with free VMWare Server 2.0 which was also a dream to install, but that is for a different article

See ya

Peter