HOWTO: install Oracle-XE in Mint 4.0 KDE CE

Although this is a very specific HowTo, except the installation of the package, the other steps are identical in all Linux distributions.

Step 1: go to the official oracle-xe site, and download the package. Because we want to install it on Mint, we download the deb package, oracle-xe-universal_10.2.0.1-1.0_i386.deb. In order to download the package, you'll have to register, but fear not, it's free :). Then, before installing this package, in the package manager install libaio, because in order to install oracle-xe this package must be preinstalled. Libaio can be installed using Adept, only run this package manager, type in the search bar libaio, click request install, click apply, and it's done.

Step 2: Now we are going to install oracle-xe-universal_10.2.0.1-1.0_i386.deb. This cannot be done using Adept, because this package cannot be found in Ubuntu or Mint's repositories because is proprietary software.

So, double click on oracle-xe-universal_10.2.0.1-1.0_i386.deb, and KPackage will appear. You will get a screen like this one:


Click on Install, and wait for a moment for the installation process to finish.

Step 3: Open Konsole, type su, and enter the root password. Next, type /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure and press enter. The next text will appear:

This will configure on-boot properties of Oracle Database 10g 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.

Next, it will ask for a port number, which will be used to access oracle-xe, so change the default one (which is 8080) with the desired one, e.g. 5050:

Specify the HTTP port that will be used for Oracle Application Express [8080]:5050

The next port number can be left the same, which is used for the database listener. So instead inserting a new number, just press enter, and leave the default one (which is 1521).

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:

So, enter the password, and after that it will ask You again for confirmation, so enter it again. The last input is whether to start or not the database service at startup.

Do you want Oracle Database 10g Express Edition to be started on boot (y/n) [y]:y
Starting Oracle Net Listener...Done
Configuring Database...Done
Starting Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Instance...Done
Installation Completed Successfully.
To access the Database Home Page go to "http://127.0.0.1:5050/apex"

And it's done. New icons should appear in the menu, meaning something like this:


Step 4: Click on 'Go To Database Homepage' login with the account SYS, and with your entered password. When you login, you can create more accounts, with different passwords, and different restrictions. For more tricks and tips on working with Oracle XE here is a nice official tutorial.