HOWTO_Install_Oracle_Developer_Suite_10g

Installation

Installation is fairly easy. Firstly download installation cpio archives from http://www.oracle.com. The next step is to extract them to an installation directory. This step requires some additional options to the cpio program:

# cd installation_tmp_dir 
# cpio -idmv < as_linux_x86_ids_101202_disk1.cpio
# cpio -idmv < as_linux_x86_ids_101202_disk2.cpio

This step will create an installation directory. Inside you will find installation script. The suite is not certified to run on Gentoo Linux, and the installation script checks some system system configuration during initialization. We turn this check off using the option -ignoreSysPrereqs.

# ./runInstaller -ignoreSysPrereqs

During the installation you will need 2 directories. One, so called oracle installation directory and the second, the directory, which will become $ORACLE_HOME. Take care with selection of this directories, since moving the installed product after installation is difficult, the installation path is hardcoded in many config files.

I recommend you to install the suite in the directory /opt/oracle.

Running Forms Builder

If you are not an english speaking guy, some configuration is needed.

$ export LC_ALL=C

an example of NLS setting

$ export NLS_LANG=SLOVAK_SLOVAKIA.EE8MSWIN1250

Also you will need to edit the file $ORACLE_HOME/guicommon/tk/admin/Tk2Motif.rgb

1) comment out all lines starting with 'Tk2Motif*fontList' so for example the line

Tk2Motif*fontList:         -*-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-120-*=1

will become

!Tk2Motif*fontList:         -*-helvetica-bold-r-normal-*-120-*=1

2) set the next line to match your $NLS_LANG variable

Tk2Motif*fontMapCs: iso8859-2=EE8MSWIN1250

3) i do not remember, i think i had to put in also this line :

Tk2Motif*fontList:         -*-iso8859-2=1

Running batch Forms compiler script

It took me days to find out why i was getting this error when running the forms batch compiling script:

FRM-91500: Unable to start/complete the build.

You need to export the ORACLE_TERM variable... and yes, the value has to be vt220 even if you do not have any (Ok, i admit that i do not know what sort of terminal it is or what...).

$ export ORACLE_TERM=vt220

Troubleshooting

Recently I ve had a problem that after some update of my system the Forms Builder stopped to work and also JDAPI did not run.

Forms builder showed this message:

Message file /opt/oracle/forms/mesg/fmcus.msb not found. 

which was obviously a nonsense error, since the original install file was there untouched.

The JDAPI (Java API to programaticcaly edit forms) did not work with message:

Failed to create new forms context

Hidden problem was in the fact that I installed the oracle client ebuild, which in his

/etc/env.d/50oracle-instantclient-basic 

exported 'LDPATH=/usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib' that (even if placed in the /etc/ld.so.conf after the path to the $ORACLE_HOME/lib and $ORACLE_HOME/include ) broke things.

The solution for me was commenting out all the lines in the file:

/etc/env.d/50oracle-instantclient-basic

and running as root:

# env-update