Install the E-Business Suite with Your Pals

By Jake • December 8th, 2009 • View Comments

EBSMy latest kick is to catalog useful information for reference purposes, which is one reason why I embarked on a quest to create a WebCenter VM.

Blogs are extremely good at SEO out of the box. So, it’s very likely that anyone searching for information on a technical topic will find a wealth of information from geeky blogs. Plus, it also helps that most blogs are started by geeks to discuss geekery.

Many of Chet’s (@oraclenerd) posts over at ORACLENERD touch on similar informational, how-to topics, and he, or rather John (@jpiwowar), just started a series on how to install the E-Business Suite on Oracle Enterprise Linux 4.

John is also including companion posts with additional information on his own blog. Be sure to follow both for the complete story. Reading over the companion for Part 1, you definitely don’t want to skip it; there are valuable nuggets in there.

This is fantastic stuff and extremely useful to the Oracle community at-large. If you’ve ever installed software, you may have started with the manual or install guide. The more complex the software, the more likely you read the install guide.

Similarly, the more complex the software, the more likely that your exact configuration may have some eccentricities that the generic documentation doesn’t address.

Enter blogs. It’s pretty likely that a geek somewhere has tried what you’re trying already and blogged about it. Sure, your mileage will vary, but this is a pretty decent assertion. I’ve validated it time and again.

Plus, if a geek blogged it, you’re pretty likely to find a way to reach out to said geek with questions and get an answer. This is why we blog, to share information.

Don’t believe me?

While reading OraNA today, I noticed a relatively new blogger just started blogging the same process, i.e. installing EBS 12.1.1 on OEL 4.

Anyway, I’ve worked for many years with EBS, dating back to 10.6 SC, and one thing I’ve never done is install the suite from scratch. So, I’ll be following John’s posts with interest.

Oh, and if you doubt that blogs rock at SEO, search for something like “install ebs 12.1 on oel”, and you’ll find both John’s posts above the fold in the results, even though they were just posted recently.

Find the comments.

Update: Looks like Floyd (@fteter) has been reading and will be venturing down the install EBS 12 path.


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  • uvox
    They customize the HTML using Tutor. Be nice if we can ship XML and transformations with BI Publisher and let them publish when and what they want - any format, any device... we'll get there!
  • Exactly, I suppose an adventurous customer (or otherwise) could build the BIP templates and share them with the World. This would be a great use of the mythical Reports Repository I worked on in mid-decade that has never materialized. You could reach out to Tim Dexter (although he's sales now) to see if BIP development would help with that project.
  • uvox
    The EBS doc is now single-sourced (XML) and delivered in PDF and Applications Help (HTML) format as part of the application. There is also a Flat HTML version produced (though I think it is available on demand only).

    I must follow up on the 11g development.
  • Woah, that's great news. I knew they were going that way, but didn't realize it had already been delivered. I like the XML delivery too, good stuff. I suppose a customer could import it for annotation internally, which would be really useful.
  • uvox
    What Smart Client? Character Mode, puh-lease...

    But point well made.

    Consider a real value add - why not take the original manual (as it's so good) and allow the community to annotate it, edit it, etc., in the cloud - wikipedia fashion rather than myriad of sources being out there... thoughts welcome.
  • Database documentation went that route beginning with 11g I think. I know I posted about that when I noticed it. It's not full wiki, but comment-based. Comments are verified and some rolled into later versions of the documentation.

    As for EBS, it's an issue with that doc being in pdf form. First, they have to go to HTML, then commentary can be added.

    Generally speaking, I'm a big fan of wiki-style documentation, but the problem is that there *must* be official documentation to provide a "warranty" for the software. That's why doc has been slow to become user-edited.
  • +1 on PDF->HTML for the EBS documentation, even w/o wiki-style annotation. Could gain so much leverage in supporting people in the Apps community by being able to link to a specific section of the docs rather than just referencing "chapter 2" or a page number. Ugh.
  • Good point. I spoke to a guy in the EBS doc team years ago, and my sense was that process was planned, but moving slowly.
  • All I can say is wow, you've already usurped John in the standings!

    The other day I got a Google Alert less than a minute after I posted...so very cool.
  • Thanks for the links (and Chet for the hosting)! Y'all rock; it's fun to feel that I'm reaching a wider audience with this series of posts. This multiple posts per week thing take a lot of effort, though. Still can't figure how you both manage to keep that sort of pace.
  • Chet's a machine lately. I have nothing better to do :)
  • Maybe for "nstall", did you also check "install" :) We might have an SEO plugin that's helping that. Not sure. It's pretty amazing how good WP is at SEO without any effort.
  • smart ass. I noticed that too. Still showed up at least. ;)
  • I guess the algorithm is smart enough to ngore your typos :)
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