On Oracle Compatibility

I attempted to try out EnterpriseDB today. I got the EnterpriseDB Advanced Server 8.2 download, which turns out to be 115 MB. The test machine is running Debian lenny.

A few minutes after my registration I got a welcome email from "EnterpriseDB" , although en25.com does not seem to be associated with EnterpriseDB. I don't know what that is about.

What you get is an InstallShield installer written in Java. This brings back pleasant memories about the JVM/library/64-bit mess last time I installed Oracle. The EDB installer supposedly has a console mode, a notable improvement over Oracle. Why they can't just offer an RPM for installation is beyond me.

Somewhere during the installation the praised Dynatune feature pops up and asks me in MySQL-style whether I'm installing a) on a development machine, b) on a mixed machine, or c) a dedicated machine. I tried to trick the thing by claiming it's a dedicated machine, even though it's obviously a development machine. I don't know what the effect of this is at the moment.

A minute later the installation aborts with an unspecified error and asks me to check /opt/EnterpriseDB/8.2/log.txt for details. That file contains a Java stack trace (any Oracle administrator would feel right at home). The real information turns out to be in the file /opt/EnterpriseDB/8.2/install_logs/initdb_stderr.txt, which I had to find on my own. This file informs me that libssl.so.4 could not be found. I don't find a file by that name in either Debian or Ubuntu in any release (even though Ubuntu is supposedly supported).

At this juncture I had to abort the experiment. Regarding the installation process, I can give EnterpriseDB full points for the near-equivalent Oracle experience, but none for the claimed PostgreSQL compliance.