Installing Oracle 11gR2 on Centos 5.5 64bit

1. The /etc/redhat-release should be faked to show Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5 (Tikanga). same goes for /etc/issues file.
But to be sure apply this settings (backup /etc/redhat-release and /etc/issue before) change existing value to
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5 (Tikanga)

2. Install fake redhat-release RPM file from http://ivan.kartik.sk/

rpm -i centos-fake.noarch.rpm

3. Create Required UNIX Groups and User (For detail check http://download.oracle.com/docs/html/B15521_01/toc.htm)

# /usr/sbin/groupadd oinstall
# /usr/sbin/groupadd dba

# /usr/sbin/useradd -g oinstall -G dba oracle

Enter the following command to set the password of the oracle user:

# passwd oracle

4. Create Required Directories
Create directories with names similar to the following and specify the correct owner, group, and permissions for them:

    * /u01/app/oracle (the Oracle base directory)
    * /u02/oradata (an optional Oracle datafile directory)

# mkdir -p /u01/app/oracle
# mkdir -p /u02/oradata

#

Change the permissions on the directories that you created to 775:

# chmod -R 775 /u01/app/oracle
# chmod -R 775 /u02/oradata


Depending on the oracle user's default shell, make the following changes to the default shell start-up file:

    * For the Bourne, Bash, or Korn shell, add the following lines to the /etc/profile file (or the /etc/profile.local file on SUSE systems):

      if [ $USER = "oracle" ]; then
              if [ $SHELL = "/bin/ksh" ]; then
                    ulimit -p 16384
                    ulimit -n 65536
              else
                    ulimit -u 16384 -n 65536
              fi
      fi

Fulfilling package requirements:

       kernel-headers-2.6.18-194.el5.x86_64.rpm \
           glibc-headers-2.5-49.x86_64.rpm \
           glibc-devel-2.5-49.x86_64.rpm \
           libstdc++-devel-4.1.2-48.el5.x86_64.rpm \
           compat-db-4.2.52-5.1.x86_64.rpm \
           libgomp-4.4.0-6.el5.x86_64.rpm \
           gcc-4.1.2-48.el5.x86_64.rpm \
           gcc-c++-4.1.2-48.el5.x86_64.rpm \
           sysstat-7.0.2-3.el5.x86_64.rpm \
           unixODBC-2.2.11-7.1.x86_64.rpm \
           unixODBC-devel-2.2.11-7.1.x86_64.rpm \
           libXp-1.0.0-8.1.el5.i386.rpm \
           libstdc++-devel-4.1.2-48.el5.i386.rpm \
           unixODBC-2.2.11-7.1.i386.rpm \
           unixODBC-devel-2.2.11-7.1.i386.rpm \
           libaio-devel-0.3.106-5.x86_64.rpm \
           elfutils-libelf-devel-static-0.137-3.el5.x86_64.rpm \
           elfutils-libelf-devel-0.137-3.el5.x86_64.rpm \
           compat-gcc-34-3.4.6-4.x86_64.rpm \
           compat-gcc-34-c++-3.4.6-4.x86_64.rpm \
           gdb-7.0.1-23.el5.x86_64.rpm \
           libtermcap-devel-2.0.8-46.1.x86_64.rpm \
           readline-devel-5.1-3.el5.x86_64.rpm \
           glibc-devel-2.5-49.i386.rpm \
           libaio-devel-0.3.106-5.i386.rpm


Install Oracle Database 11gR2

1. Download the linux.x64_11gR2_database_1of2.zip and linux.x64_11gR2_database_2of2.zip from www.oracle.com
2 unzip both archive this will give one database directory
3. cd database directory and run ./runInstaller (the installer must be run as oracle user)