[ILUG] RHEL clones

[Conor Wynne]

On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 10:44 PM, Breno Gomes <brenogomes at iolfree.ie> wrote:

> >
> > Lars Hecking wrote:
> >>  Hi all,
> >>
> >>  Has anyone ever come across a situation, anecdotical or otherwise,
> where
> >>  commerical software, or software available binary only, that works on
> RHEL
> >>  does not work on a RHEL clone like CentOS with otherwise identical
> parameters
> >>  (OS revision, package list, patch level, hardware etc.).
> >>
> >>  RHEL and clones are supposed to be fully binary compatible, but where
> is
> >>  the proof?
> >>
> >>  I'm trying to assess the likelyhood of a software vendor refusing
> support
> >>  on the grounds that RHEL clones are not on their supported OS list.
> > [snip]
> >
> >       Oracle (9i) is one example I've come across of where they refuse
> (or at
> > least, have refused in the past) support for a non-RHEL solution. I have
> > used it on CentOS, and had to slightly customise the installation
> > scripts so that they were fooled into thinking they were being run on a
> > genuine RHEL box. The checking was mostly string matching, IIRC so it
> > really wasn't a problem - and Oracle worked excellently on CentOS, once
> > it was installed :-)
> >
> >       Hope that helps.
> >
> >       Best regards,
> >       -->Gar
>
> I agree with Gareth. Oracle has very strict dependencies. Editing the
> installation scripts is a safe route. An alternative method is to add or
> edit the package
> /etc/redhat-release
>
> This will work for other applications as well.
>
> There is a patch for 10gR1 (10.1.0.3.0) available on Metalink.
> Please be aware the support will be limited to the database only, which
> is not an issue if you are not deploying critical production databases.
>
> Please feel free to send me a private message if you need more details.
>

You know I find that hilarious, Oracle costs more than your server and OS
combined, and potentially more than your backend storage as well, yet people
go and install it on an unsupported OS. This makes no sense to me at all.

If you must use a RHEL clone, and you buy oracle retail (not OE), then why
not go for unitedlinux instead. That way oracle are your one stop shop for
everything.

Now your server vendor won't support it, but that is another matter.
If this is purely for testing and learning, that's another matter
altogether.


>
> Breno
> --
>

regards,
Conor.