install 2 versions of Oracle in 2 different ORACLE_HOME directories

[vr76413]

hi all

My previous DBA has installed Oracle 8i on sun 5.8 in its own ORACLE_HOME.
now i want to install ORacle 9i on sun 5.8 in its own ORACLE_HOME dir.

My questions are

1) if i use the same user account to install 9i , how do i set the .profile file or should i create another .profile file for the same user ? because , .profile file has already been set for 8i version or if i keep the same .profile file, what are the changes to be made to .profile file ?


2) When i login into oracle account, Oracle is recognising me as 8i user, i want ORacle to install 9i version . how do we set the variables each time we change the versions ?

3) do i need to stop the currently running listener for 8i during installation of 9i ?


Also if you find any online doc links incl metalink, that tells about 'installing 2 versions of oracle on unix', please let me knoe.


I really appreciate it.

Thanks

Ram

[justadba]

I would install under the same userid (Oracle) that you used to install previous versions of Oracle with. It will make all future upgrades easier, in my opinion.

I use the oraenv script that Oracle installs to change all my environment variables in order to point to what Oracle home I desire. You have to modify the oraenv script to include the LD_LIBRARY_PATH as this is not included in the original script. If you set your environment variable ORAENV_ASK to YES in your .profile then you can change your Oracle environment at will.

The Oracle installation docs suggest that you shut down all Oracle executables (instances & listener) prior to installing a new version of the software. I installed a new version with the old version up and running, but that was back in the old v7.2 days. I havn't done that since so I don't know if there will be any problems under 9i.

[vr76413]

This is how my .profile looks as of now. i still haven't installed 9i version on this box.

***********************************************************
bash-2.05$ cat .profile
ORACLE_BASE=/opt/oracle/oradata/mnt1/app/oracle
export ORACLE_BASE

ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/8.1.7
export ORACLE_HOME

ORACLE_SID=heattest
export ORACLE_SID

PATH=/usr/bin:/etc:/usr/ccs/bin:/usr/openwin/bin:/usr/local/bin:$ORACLE_HOME/bin
export PATH

bash-2.05$

***********************************************************


So my question is what are the changes i need to make (add/delete ) to this file for oracle 9i installation. The above settings are made when 8i was installed.


Thanks

Ram