Rating: 
Summary: Great Comprehensive Introduction to Oracle
Review: NOTE: RED HAT USERS SHOULD READ THIS BEFORE BUYINGOverall I really liked this book. I have a lot of industry experience but not much experience with Oracle and this book was a perfect introduction. The material was extremely well organized and presented in an easy to read format. The strength of this book is that it will give you enough information to get up and running without bogging you down with too much details that you won't initially need. The chapter on PL/SQL is very helpful for a person with SQL knowledge. Once you work through the compatibility issues (see below) you should have the database installed in no time at all. Now the reason this book lost a star. After buying the book I realized that the Oracle installer (Oracle Bug) will not run on Red Hat 7.0. It should run fine on version 6.2 so you may not want to upgrade. If you want to upgrade make sure you move directly to Red Hat 7.1 which was released with new compatibility libraries which are backwards compatible. I did not use the version of Oracle which came with the book but instead downloaded 8.1.7 from Oracle's web site and successfully installed it on Red Hat 7.1. To find the neccessary information to install under version 7.1, go to Red Hat's site and search for "7.1 last minute oracle".
Rating: 
Summary: Good intentions, but poor definition...
Review: The install will not work for me in Mandrake 8.2. The cdrom system may require older kernels of Linux. But, another reviewer stated the same problem, being that the database installation hangs up, which is what I experience. The directory ownership is not defined explicitly, and some instructions assume too much is already known. If someone has enough savvy to work their way through the install, why would they need this book?
Rating: 
Summary: Get this and have a Oracle on Unix running at home
Review: This beautiful book has Oracle8i enterprise version software. Even if you are a novice in Linux you can still install Oracle on top of that with the help of this book with a little attention to detail. I used RedHat 6.2 after I ran into problems with Redhat 7.0. The problem seems to be with Redhat as it was suggesting most of the time to report a bug. I then put in 6.2 and paid more attention to the text in italics in Steve's book ( be careful there). The installation was a breeze and I have now what I had wanted for a long while. Infact I have DB2UDB also (7.1) running in the same machine. I have 256 MB memory. My suggestion is to have another Linux reference as a stand by esp. if you are not very conversant with Linux. RedHat Linux System administrator's Black Book is a good one for suggestion. In my opinion this book is definitely worth buying if you are serious about exploring the possiblilities of Oracle on Linux. Oracle DBAs with Unix background are in good demand and I feel this is the right place to start towards that DBAdom.;-)
Rating:
Summary: Very good instructions. Thorough coverage of Oracle topics.
Review: This book is great. After trying in vain to install a download of Oracle 8.1.5 standard edition for linux I bought this book for a help reference. It comes with Oracle 8.1.6 enterprise. I got it installed and configured on Linux Mandrake 7 in about 3 hours. The Oracle instructions were great, but the linux/unix parts provide little explanation. Some knowledge of Linux is expected but I am by no means an expert. I got by with a combination of the Linux Mandrake docs and the Redhat 6.2 administrators study guide.
Rating:
Summary: Review of the book, not the software or operating system
Review: This book is perfect for a reasonably resourceful and talented beginner with Oracle. It provides a much better practical hands on approach than the various OReilly books, which however are also good. I have installed it on RedHat 6.2, and also on RedHat 7.1, after following the instructions that come with that distribution regarding compatibility issues with the Java Virtual Machine, which is what Oracle Installer uses. I think it is completely unfair of reviewers here to pile on with 1 star reviews because Oracle and RedHat didn't coordinate sufficiently to make sure Oracle would install cleanly on RedHat versions subsequent to 6.2. How on earth is that the author's fault? This is not a book for Linux newbies, nor should it be (I've been using Linux for virtual web accounts, and at home, on and off, for 3 years). It is also not a book for intermediate/advanced Oracle users, nor should it be: that's why it's an Oracle "Starter Kit". I'd have given this book five stars except that the book does not advocate the implementation of "OFA" or "Optimal Flexible Architecture", as far as partioning and/or organizing Oracle files on Linux. Partitioning in particular is more of a Linux issue, but this is one place where I think the author should have gotten more deeply into such concerns. I'm tempted to give this book 5 stars to offset the one star reviews, but that would be dishonest, and I am not going to stoop to the level of most of those reviewers who in my opinion have completely unreasonable expectations of the author.
Rating:
Summary: Review of the book, not the software or operating system
Review: This book is perfect for a reasonably resourceful and talented beginner with Oracle. It provides a much better practical hands on approach than the various OReilly books, which however are also good. I have installed it on RedHat 6.2, and also on RedHat 7.1, after following the instructions that come with that distribution regarding compatibility issues with the Java Virtual Machine, which is what Oracle Installer uses. I think it is completely unfair of reviewers here to pile on with 1 star reviews because Oracle and RedHat didn't coordinate sufficiently to make sure Oracle would install cleanly on RedHat versions subsequent to 6.2. How on earth is that the author's fault? This is not a book for Linux newbies, nor should it be (I've been using Linux for virtual web accounts, and at home, on and off, for 3 years). It is also not a book for intermediate/advanced Oracle users, nor should it be: that's why it's an Oracle "Starter Kit". I'd have given this book five stars except that the book does not advocate the implementation of "OFA" or "Optimal Flexible Architecture", as far as partioning and/or organizing Oracle files on Linux. Partitioning in particular is more of a Linux issue, but this is one place where I think the author should have gotten more deeply into such concerns. I'm tempted to give this book 5 stars to offset the one star reviews, but that would be dishonest, and I am not going to stoop to the level of most of those reviewers who in my opinion have completely unreasonable expectations of the author.
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of time for even a mid-level Oracle DBA
Review: This book is really a starter kit. It is an almost trivial overview that covers nothing more than a demo-level, automated (installer) walkthrough. I suppose it is worth the price for the 8.1.6.0 (not even 8.1.6.1) version included if this is the only way you can get the software. Author well intentioned but trivial, bought it and returned it.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: This is one of the best 'how-to' books I have ever read. I got Oracle up and running on Mandrake 7.0 with (almost) no problem at all. Step-by-step instructions for configuring Linux accounts and permissions contain very little explanation. Also, could not get TNSLISTENER to start at boot with instructions given, but since author provides fix for non-functioning dbstart script (provided by Oracle installer cd), I really can't complain. You should definitly have other (Linux) references on hand before starting, if you are not a Linux 'expert'.
Rating:
Summary: Outdated and Nonfunctional - Don't Waste Your Time
Review: Unfortunately this book is outdated and the Linux kernel has been changed making the installation instructions inaccurate. I tried numerous times with several old versions of Linux and instructions I found on the net but there were problems with recognizing my hard drive and had no success. This book won't save you any time, avoid it...
Rating:
Summary: Outdated and Nonfunctional - Don't Waste Your Time
Review: Unfortunately this book is outdated and the Linux kernel has been changed making the installation instructions inaccurate. I tried numerous times with several old versions of Linux and instructions I found on the net but there were problems with recognizing my hard drive and had no success. This book won't save you any time, avoid it...
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