I have had a few MySQL DBAs ask about how to get started learning Oracle. I will admit that it has been on my to-do list for quite a while1. It never hurts to know more than one database system and a great deal of DBA help wanted ads mention Oracle. Someone once said that you must make sure your capabilities exceed your limitations2 and recently I have been feeling limited when others have started to talk about Oracle capabilities.

So what does it take for a MySQL DBA to get their hands on their own Oracle instance? I used my Ubuntu box to go to Oracle's web site to get the free Oracle XE software.

1. 
   
2. Download and feed to package manager
   
3. Add my account to dba group
   
4. As root, /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure to set passwords and …

These are two books I would highly recommend for new MySQL DBAs. Both are very well written with a nice writing style. I really like the writing style of the person that wrote the Head First SQL class. Head First MySQL MySQL 5.0 Certification Study Guide

Installing the MySQL GUI tools are pretty easy on Linux (Fedora - 2.6.18-1.2798.fc6) but there are a few prerequisites for setting them up. The following listed RPMs are required. I did a google search and then performed a quick download of them. libsigc++20-2.0.6-1.i386.rpmglibmm-2.4.7-1.rhfc3.nr.i386.rpm gtkmm24-2.8.5-1.i386.rpm Load the RPMs. MySQL Administor is loaded in /usr/bin by