1. The Oracle Installer GUI is pretty straight forward and easy to use. You can create a sample database from there.

2. Make sure you have the appropriate permissions and that you have set the /etc/system parameters correctly. These are outlined in the Installation Guide.

3. With 8.1.7, I like to install from Disk instead of CD-ROM. Create a directory, say /tmp/oinstall and create two sub-directories; /tmp/oinstall/Disk1 and /tmp/oinstall/Disk2 (Case is VERY important). Then, install from /tmp/oinstall/Disk1/runInstaller.sh