Debian Enterprise (not a Starfleet metaphor)

[Sean 'Shaleh' Perry]

> >
> > Response:  Then get RH specifically for $PROPRIETARY_SW ....
>
> I realise Oracle is the extreme-outlier case, and that it might be more
> practical for other examples, but might someone create and maintain
> Debian contrib package "oracle9i-rdbms-support" with no contents other
> than the necessary Depends lines?  If the Depends packages were all
> available, then installing that package (and, if necessary, putting it
> on "hold" status) would answer the functional part of pointy-hair
> objections, right?
>
> There remains Oracle Corp. platform certification, but that would seem
> feasible if the meta-package mechanism described works well enough,
> given Oracle RDBMS's insanely finicky and fragile requirements.
> (The "Depends" might, for example, have to include some cruddy kernel
> and glibc combo borrowed from a Red Hat release.)
>

It would indeed have to include the right glibc and kernel *AND* make sure the 
user does not update away from them.  Which means having two versions of libc 
on the box.  But if you call Oracle for support they won't talk to you 
because you are on an unsupported platform at this point.

Not to mention RHisms in scripts and the like from commercial vendors.  At my 
present job we have backup software, Oracle + ERP, etc all requiring RH 8.
I am about to see how well my covert Debian machines deal with the backup 
software.