XE is less than 220 Mb download and Installing it on  a Linux system is as simple as

rpm -ivh oracle-xe.rpm

However, there is some caveats, i.e. some system parameters to tweak before installing SOA Suite’s database schemas using Repository Creation Utility (RCU).

In the same spirit as my previous blog entry : here are the magical incantations for the database gods, to be executed before RCU.

First connect to the database :

sqlplus sys/yourpassword@XE as sysdba

(be sure to have /usr/lib/oracle/xe/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/server/bin in your PATH)

SQL> show parameter processes //processes should be 40 – must be 200

SQL> alter system set processes = 200 scope=spfile;

SQL> show parameter session;

SQL> alter system reset sessions scope=spfile sid='*';

SQL> shutdown immediate;

SQL> exit;

then restart XE with :

sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-xe start

Finally, as stated on SOA Suite download page :

“If you want to use XE you can set the RCU_JDBC_TRIM_BLOCKS environment variable to TRUE *prior* to running RCU. As a reminder as to support level, when running RCU against XE you will receive a warning stating that the database version is not supported by Oracle.”

You must issue

export RCU_JDBC_TRIM_BLOCKS=true

before starting RCU. Failing to do so will cause WebLogic to issue a bunch of database related exceptions at startup time.

That’s it !  You can now proceed with RCU to install SOA Suite’s database schemas.

Enjoy !