First, log in as the oracle user.
Since Oracle 8.1.7 uses a graphical installer, you need to be running X Windows or point the DISPLAY environment variable to an X Windows session running somewhere.
Installing Oracle 8.1.7 tends to be easy and painless. If you have a CD, mount it and cd to the mount point. If you have a tar.gz distribution, extract it using tar xfz and cd to the Disk1 directory created by the extraction.
Type ./runInstallerOn the Welcome screen click Next
On the File Locations screen...
Check the Destination, it should be the same as the ORACLE_HOME Environment variable.
Click Next
On the Available Products screen...
Select Oracle8i Enterprise Edition 8.1.7
Click Next
On the Installation Types screen
Select Typical
Click Next
On the Database Identification screen...
Enter ora1 for Global Database Name and SID
Click Next
On the Database File Location screen...
For Directory for Database Files enter /u01
Click Next
On the Choose JDK Home Directory screen...
For Enter JDK Home enter /usr/local/java
Click Next
On the Summary screen click Install
The Install screen will show the installation progress
On Slackware, about halfway through this process, you will most likely get an error. Switch to another screen and edit the file $ORACLE_HOME/bin/genclntsh. Search for a line like LD="ld -shared -L${ORACLE_HOME}/lib" and modify it to read LD="/usr/local/binutils-glibc21/bin/ld -shared -L{ORACLE_HOME}/lib". Then run $ORACLE_HOME/bin/genclntsh manually. When it finishes, click retry.
At the end of the installation, a Dialog will pop upFollow the directions on the dialog then click Ok
On the Configuration Tools screen, the Net8 Configuration Dialog will pop up
Check Perform typical configuration
Click Next
A dialog will pop up indicating that a database is being created
After a while, a dialog will pop up indicating that database creation completed
Click Ok On the End Of Installation screen click Exit
On the Do you really want to exit? dialog click Yes