Quoting Brian Densmore [email protected]:
Right, I knew that, but this is a fullblown shrink-wrapped enterprise level version with all the bells and whistles and documents. Which is a bit different than the download version (which I ordered from Oracle way back) on a CD from Oracle, I think I also have the 9i download version on CD.
According to Oracle's web site, the versions available for download are the full versions. Even the documentation is available for download. We've been using the downloaded versions where I work in a production environment (yes we have the licenses) for a few years and I can tell you they are identical to the packaged versions we received in the mail after we bought the licenses.
I prefer to grab the latest ISOs from Oracle though because they have the most recent patchsets applied.
If you got 9i on a single CD, you must have a "personal" version or something because 9i requires three CDs... 10G requires only one CD, or so I was told by our Oracle rep.
Well, I've been wanting to play with some databases for a while, but I have some real projects I will be working on also.
Good luck. I usually reach for MySQL first. We've been using the 4.1.2 version with full support for referential integrity and transactions with great success in production for nearly a year with only one strange bug that has recently been addressed by the developers.
MySQL is much easier to manage than Oracle, IMHO. But if you're dealing with money, it's probably a safer bet to stick with Oracle, though I'm not sure that's going to be true for much longer.
-- Dave Hull http://insipid.com