Oracle 9i Problems on a Redhat 7.1 System

I successfully installed Oracle 9i on a Redhat 7.1 box. After the installer finished, it successfully started an Oracle instance and mounted the default database that I created during the install process. I was then able to log in using SQLPlus and go about my business.

The problem is, since the installer does not provide an automated startup/shutdown script for my Oracle databases, I was obviously not able to log in using SQLPlus the next time I booted my machine. When I try to fire up my databases using my startup script from /etc/rc.d/init.d/ which calls $ORACLE_HOME/bin/dbstart,
I get the following error message in the output:

     ORA-12709: error while loading create database character set. But at the very end of the output, it says:

     "Database 'patdb' warm started."
(BTW: I modified my /etc/oratab and changed the N value to Y to signify that my db should be started up at boot time.) When I then try to login with SQLPlus, it tells me that:

     ORA-01033: ORACLE initialization or shutdown in progress. I try logging in after 30 mins, same thing. My database just doesn't want to come up anymore.

Any suggestions? This is kicking my ass. This isn't a production box or anything, just a box to be used for personal tinkering and development work. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks,
-Patrick Received on Thu Jul 19 2001 - 22:44:08 CDT