Steps for installation

We can take all this an setup a basic order for installation. They should be:

1. Modify the system tuneables for your platform (/etc/system on Solaris) and reboot to take effect.
2. Create the directory /u01/app/oracle and /u01/oradata
3. Create the groups dba, oinstall, and oper.
4. Create the user oracle with the primary group oinstall and /u01/app/oracle as the home directory
5. Add the oracle user to the dba and oper groups.
6. Start the Oracle Universal Installer from Oracle install media.
7. Use /u01/app/oracle/oraInventory as the path for the inventory and /u01/app/oracle/product as the base path for the installation, skipping database creation.
8. After the installer is complete use dbca (The Database Creation Assistant) to create your databases.

When you create your databases with dbca continue to use the OFA by installing your datafiles in /u01/oradata/SID, or if you prefer to use a different mount point, /u02/oradata/SID. Obviously you can get creative with your data layout as it maps to your disk subsystem. Some DBAs will request a local mount for /u01 to install oracle, and then two or more /u0x directories with different specs for datafiles. In this way, we can distribute files onto disks with different accesses patterns or tuning specifications.