Installing Oracle 11g XE and SQLDeveloper on Debian 8.5

First, let’s open a terminal and install the following packages:

sudo apt-get install alien libaio1

Then download del installation file. Go to the Download page at Oracle. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/database-technologies/express-edition/downloads/index.html

In order to download the package, you must have a registered user at Oracle website. If you don’t, please do register and try again. At the time of this post, the following file was downloaded. http://download.oracle.com/otn/linux/oracle11g/xe/oracle-xe-11.2.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm.zip  If you click on this link you’ll be prompted for a user and password.

Notice that the instalation file is an .rpm file. This is the package format for RedHat or Fedora. But Debian uses de .deb Debian format. The assumption is that the downloaded files is at ~/Downloads/. So we change to that directory and uncompress the file:

cd ~/Downloads
 unzip oracle-xe-11.2.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm.zip

A new directory appears, so we change there.

cd Disk1

Now we convert the rpm package to a Debian package:

sudo alien --scripts oracle-xe-11.2.0-1.0.x86_64.rpm
      oracle-xe_11.2.0-2_amd64.deb generated

We have to create a file for the daemon system to work fine with this tool. So we create a new chkconfig file.

cd /sbin
 sudo nano chkconfig

The file is empty. So we fill the file with the following content:

#!/bin/bash
 # Oracle 11gR2 XE installer chkconfig hack for Ubuntu/Debian
 file=/etc/init.d/oracle-xe
 if [[ ! 'tail -n1 $file | grep INIT' ]]; then
 echo >> $file
 echo '### BEGIN INIT INFO' >> $file
 echo '# Provides: OracleXE' >> $file
 echo '# Required-Start: $remote_fs $syslog' >> $file
 echo '# Required-Stop: $remote_fs $syslog' >> $file
 echo '# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5' >> $file
 echo '# Default-Stop: 0 1 6' >> $file
 echo '# Short-Description: Oracle 11g Express Edition' >> $file
 echo '### END INIT INFO' >> $file
 fi
 update-rc.d oracle-xe defaults 80 01
 # EOF

We change permissions and check the result:

sudo chmod 755 chkconfig
 ls -l chkconfig
       -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 555 Aug 28 20:53 chkconfig

In your case, the number after root root can be different, also time and date.

We have to create links for some applications that are at different places on Fedora an RedHat that are cabled inside Oracle’s instalation:

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/awk /bin/awk
ls -l /bin/awk
      lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Aug 28 20:58 /bin/awk -> /usr/bin/awk

Let’s check whether Debian got a ram-disk. We should have it installed.

df -k

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
 ...
 tmpfs 3985052 5828 3979224 1% /dev/shm
 ...

(Optional) If there is no /dev/shm then we have to create it. Debian 8 normally has it.

sudo rm -rf /dev/shm
sudo mkdir /dev/shm
sudo mount -t tmpfs shmfs -o size=2048m /dev/shm

Edit the following file and add the following text.

sudo gedit /etc/rc2.d/S01shm_load

#!/bin/sh
 case "$1" in
 start) mkdir /var/lock/subsys 2>/dev/null
 touch /var/lock/subsys/listener
 rm /dev/shm 2>/dev/null
 mkdir /dev/shm 2>/dev/null
 mount -t tmpfs shmfs -o size=2048m /dev/shm ;;
 *) echo error
 exit 1 ;;
 esac

sudo chmod 755 /etc/rc2.d/S01shm_load

If /dev/shm is already created, just continue with the installation. We return to the original directory.

cd ~/Downloads/Disk1

Now we are ready to install the product

sudo dpkg --install ./oracle-xe_11.2.0-2_amd64.deb

 Selecting previously unselected package oracle-xe.
 (Reading database ... 737155 files and directories currently installed.)
 Preparing to unpack ./oracle-xe_11.2.0-2_amd64.deb ...
 Unpacking oracle-xe (11.2.0-2) ...
 Setting up oracle-xe (11.2.0-2) ...
 Executing post-install steps...
 insserv: warning: script 'K01oracle-xe' missing LSB tags and overrides
 insserv: warning: script 'oracle-xe' missing LSB tags and overrides
 You must run '/etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure' as the root user to configure the database.

 Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6) ...
 Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1) ...
 Processing triggers for mime-support (3.58) ...
 Processing triggers for systemd (215-17+deb8u4) ...
 Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-18+deb8u4) ...

Now it is installed. But we have to fix some problems

We have to correct the users profile. We edit the following file, and fill the following text in order to start using this product.

sudo nano /etc/bash.bashrc

export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe
export ORACLE_SID=XE
export NLS_LANG=`$ORACLE_HOME/bin/nls_lang.sh`
export ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH
source /etc/bash.bashrc

We have to configure the oracle-xe application.

cd ..
 sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure

Oracle Database 11g Express Edition Configuration
 -------------------------------------------------
 This will configure on-boot properties of Oracle Database 11g Express
 Edition. The following questions will determine whether the database should
 be starting upon system boot, the ports it will use, and the passwords that
 will be used for database accounts. Press to accept the defaults.
 Ctrl-C will abort.

Specify the HTTP port that will be used for Oracle Application Express [8080]:

Specify a port that will be used for the database listener [1521]:

Specify a password to be used for database accounts. Note that the same
 password will be used for SYS and SYSTEM. Oracle recommends the use of
 different passwords for each database account. This can be done after
 initial configuration:
 Confirm the password:

Do you want Oracle Database 11g Express Edition to be started on boot (y/n) [y]:

Starting Oracle Net Listener...Done
 Configuring database...Done
 Starting Oracle Database 11g Express Edition instance...Done
 Installation completed successfully.

Now we start service.

sudo service oracle-xe start

We got a new link at our desktop. By clicking a web browser appears. It will request us user and password. This could be user system and the password configured.

And we are working already. Oracle 11g XE Database is working normally.

In order to install SQLDeveloper we need to install Oracle Java for Debian.

We install Oracle-Java-8 following the next link:
http://informatica-fcien.blogspot.com.uy/2016/07/instalar-oracle-java-en-debian.html
After installation we check whether version of Oracle Java is installed.

Selection Path Priority Status
 ------------------------------------------------------------
 * 0 /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin/java 1081 auto mode
 1 /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java 1071 manual mode
 2 /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin/java 1081 manual mode

Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number: 1
 update-alternatives: using /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java to provide /usr/bin/java (java) in manual mode

We install SQLdeveloper from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-developer/downloads/index.html

We download the file sqldeveloper_4.1.5.21.78-2_all.noarch.rpm

And convert the package.

sudo alien --scripts -d sqldeveloper_4.1.5.21.78-2_all.noarch.rpm
       sqldeveloper_4.1.3.20.78-2_all.deb generated

Now we are ready to install:

sudo dpkg -i sqldeveloper_4.1.5.21.78-2_all.deb

Although we have a link to the application, we should call it from a terminal for the first time.

sqldeveloper

And will ask where are the Oracle java JDK. We just write:

/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle

and SQLDeveloper will start its visual interface.

Now we can add a profile, and make sure it connects to the database manager.

The new profile asks for user and password to connect from localhost. We used system with its password.

Then we are ready to work.

You can install Oracle Data Modeler just with the same steps than for SQLDeveloper.