Oracle XE 10gR2 on Kubuntu 64-bit
So I started poking around for instructions on installing Oracle XE 10gR2 on my Kubuntu Hardy 64-bit installation recently. I came across this article from Oracle, which seemed like exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately, it assumes that the intended host operating system is 32-bit, which causes issues if you try to install XE through apt as the Oracle article suggests. After following these instructions, I immediately received this error:
W: Failed to fetch http://oss.oracle.com/debian/dists/unstable/Release \
Unable to find expected entry main/binary-amd64/Packages in \
Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)
After that, any apt command issued (related or not) produced this error.
E: The package oracle-xe needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an \
archive for it.
And finally, when I resorted to using this excellent guide instead, I ran into this problem because of the earlier failed installation.
dpkg: regarding oracle-xe-universal_10.2.0.1-1.1_i386.deb containing \
oracle-xe-universal:
oracle-xe-universal conflicts with oracle-xe
oracle-xe (version 10.2.0.1-1.0) is present and broken due to failed \
removal or installation.
dpkg: error processing oracle-xe-universal_10.2.0.1-1.1_i386.deb \
(--install):
conflicting packages - not installing oracle-xe-universal
Errors were encountered while processing:
oracle-xe-universal_10.2.0.1-1.1_i386.deb
Luckily, I was able to find a solution to purge the failed installation from the system. One thing that the Oracle article was useful for was creating a swap file large enough for Oracle to use, as the issue described in the article with not having enough swap space did arise when I initially tried the installation. Beyond that, the non-Oracle guide mentioned earlier worked like a charm and I now have a working XE installation on my system.
More Kubuntu Developments
I finally figured out how to control the monitor brightness via this forum thread using the xbacklight command. I'm really happy for that, because it was a bit of a strain on my eyes and I couldn't find a way to do it through the desktop manager. One other nice point about the forum thread is that it also walks you through how to execute this command automatically when battery power kicks in.
Kubuntu doesn't install it by default, but if you search Adept for ndiswrapper, you should get an option to install Windows WiFi Drivers. This includes drivers for the Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 AG/AGN card, and once installed, it worked without requiring me to track down and install drivers manually.
I wanted to see if some of my games would work under Kubuntu. I tried Wine, but wasn't able to get it to run Warcraft III without crashing immediately after selecting the play option from the splash screen. Apparently the supporting libraries for my particular graphics card (Intel 965 chipset) are fairly buggy when it comes to hardware acceleration.
I also attempted to install VMware in order to run the game in a virtual machine, but that was a dead end as well: the game won't run with the display drivers provided by VMware tools
and that it's not possible to install the host machine's drivers and
have them work correctly. Incidentally, this forum thread provided some feedback about how to remove a partial installation so that aptitude will allow you to do a reinstallation.
sudo dpkg --purge --force-remove-reinstreq vmware-server ended up doing the job.
So, as much as I hated the idea of having to go back to Windows, I set out to configure my system to dual-boot. Small problem: I have a SATA drive, which requires special drivers that Hitachi claims can only be installed via a floppy drive. My laptop doesn't have one, and I'm not overly inclined to purchase an external one just toinstall XP.
My friend Jeff Jones pointed me to a forum thread detailing how to integrate the SATA drivers as well as Service Pack 2 into a custom XP CD. Since I didn't have another existing XP installation, I had to use a VMware machine. It took some digging to find the Intel 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller drivers and how to extract them for unattended installation. I used XP-ISO-Builder to create a custom ISO image and DeepBurner Free to burn it to CD.
In attempting to boot with the CD, though, I got as far as being prompted to install the drivers before being presented with the error "The file iaStor.sys is corrupted." Setup wouldn't proceed any further, so I gave up on it for now. If you have any experience with a working solution rolling SATA drivers into a custom XP CD, I'd be interested to know. Feel free to leave a comment on this blog entry.
Kubuntu + Vaio = Nice
So the tax return ended up coming in around my birthday. Since it had been a long while since I'd gotten an upgrade, I decided to treat myself to a new Sony Vaio VGN-NR298E. The first order of business once I got it, of couse, was to wipe it clean of Windows Vista. Not having ever settled on a Linux distro of preference before, I decided to give Kubuntu 7.10 a try.
After installing and booting up for the first time, I found that the wireless didn't work right out of the box. I was able to find this forum thread, which included a link to the Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 AG/AGN network card drivers in the section marked "Wlan." I installed ndiswrapper-common and ndiswrapper-utils-1.9, the latter of which appeared to include a version of the netw4x32 driver. However, when I issued the command ndiswrapper -l, it indicated that the driver was invalid. I removed it with ndiswrapper -r netw4x32, then downloaded the latest version from the aforementioned link and installed it as per the forum thread's directions.
I also needed a solution to allow me to manage the music and files on my Creative Zen Vision: W. I'd had great experiences with their MuVo line, but I have to say that the experience with the Zen hasn't been nearly as good. Creative has extremely subpar Windows-only software for interacting with the hardware, the design of which was obviously intended to keep third parties from developing their own software.
Oddly enough, I'd never heard of this before, but Gnomad2 was quite the excellent solution for my situation. It's a simple program with an FTP client-like interface for transferring music and files to and from the Zen. If you enable the universe and multiverse repositories, you should be able to find it by searching Adept.
I also ran into the reputable difficulties with the keyboard function keys. The volume function keys will only let me toggle the volume up and down a single level relative to its current level. The brightness keys don't work at all, which is annoying as I end up missing the feature that worked fine on my old Dell Inspiron 1150. I've tried a few suggested solutions for getting these to work, but no luck so far. Any feedback on this is welcome.
I couldn't adjust myself to Konqueror as it felt like an unfamiliar, slow, and crippled version of Firefox. I ended up installing that along with the Flash Player add-on for it and my usual group of extensions. I also found the default installation lacking a program capable of playing some video formats, so I installed VLC (also available from Adept).
Overall, though, I think I'm liking Kubuntu. Hopefully Lorna Jane will be able to help me get further accustomed to it.