Installing Oracle 11g XE on Ubuntu 12.04

I have spent the last 6 hours trying to install Oracle 11g on Ubuntu. Obviously, I'm not the only one who has struggled with this, as there is a lot of (often misleading) "documentation" online on how to resolve the various errors that one invariably encounters when installing Oracle 11g on Ubuntu. I followed one such "guide" - (this one) , and followed all the instructions. I then spent the last 5 hours trying to configure Oracle, to no avail. when I run /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure, I got the response (after a few minutes): Starting Oracle Net Listener...Done Configuring database... Database Configuration failed. Look into /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/config/log for details Here are the contents of the files in my /u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/config/log folder: **CloneDbCreation.log** Control file created. PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. ORA-01109: database not open Database dismounted. ORACLE instance shut down. ORACLE instance started. Total System Global Area 1068937216 bytes Fixed Size 2233344 bytes Variable Size 616565760 bytes Database Buffers 444596224 bytes Redo Buffers 5541888 bytes Control file created. System altered. Database altered. Database altered. System altered. System altered. Database altered. Tablespace altered. TABLESPACE_NAME ------------------------------ USERS SID PROGRAM SERIAL# ---------- ------------------------------------------------ ---------- USERNAME ------------------------------ 1 oracle@jupiter (PMON) 1 2 oracle@jupiter (VKTM) 1 3 oracle@jupiter (DIAG) 1 SID PROGRAM SERIAL# ---------- ------------------------------------------------ ---------- USERNAME ------------------------------ 4 oracle@jupiter (DIA0) 1 5 oracle@jupiter (DBW0) 1 6 oracle@jupiter (CKPT) 1 SID PROGRAM SERIAL# ---------- ------------------------------------------------ ---------- USERNAME ------------------------------ 7 oracle@jupiter (RECO) 1 8 oracle@jupiter (MMNL) 3 9 oracle@jupiter (VKRM) 7 SID PROGRAM SERIAL# ---------- ------------------------------------------------ ---------- USERNAME ------------------------------ 10 oracle@jupiter (CJQ0) 5 87 sqlplus@jupiter (TNS V1-V3) 3 SYS 88 oracle@jupiter (PSP0) 1 SID PROGRAM SERIAL# ---------- ------------------------------------------------ ---------- USERNAME ------------------------------ 89 oracle@jupiter (GEN0) 1 90 oracle@jupiter (DBRM) 1 91 oracle@jupiter (MMAN) 1 SID PROGRAM SERIAL# ---------- ------------------------------------------------ ---------- USERNAME ------------------------------ 92 oracle@jupiter (LGWR) 1 93 oracle@jupiter (SMON) 1 94 oracle@jupiter (MMON) 3 SID PROGRAM SERIAL# ---------- ------------------------------------------------ ---------- USERNAME ------------------------------ 98 oracle@jupiter (QMNC) 5 19 rows selected. User altered. User altered. System altered. **CloneRmanRestore.log** ORACLE instance started. Total System Global Area 1068937216 bytes Fixed Size 2233344 bytes Variable Size 616565760 bytes Database Buffers 444596224 bytes Redo Buffers 5541888 bytes TO_CHAR(SYSTIMEST ----------------- 20121127 08:47:46 Allocating device.... Specifying datafiles... Specifing datafiles... Restoring ... Restore done. PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. TO_CHAR(SYSTIMEST ----------------- 20121127 08:48:17 **PostDBCreation.log** PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. File created. Database closed. Database dismounted. ORACLE instance shut down. ORACLE instance started. Total System Global Area 1068937216 bytes Fixed Size 2233344 bytes Variable Size 616565760 bytes Database Buffers 444596224 bytes Redo Buffers 5541888 bytes Database mounted. Database opened. 'UTL_RECOMP_BEGIN:'||TO_CH -------------------------- utl_recomp_begin: 08:49:11 PL/SQL procedure successfully completed. 'UTL_RECOMP_END:'||TO_CH ------------------------ utl_recomp_end: 08:49:13 **postScripts.log** CREATE OR REPLACE LIBRARY dbms_sumadv_lib AS '/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/lib/libqsmashr.so'; * ERROR at line 1: ORA-01034: ORACLE not available Process ID: 0 Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0 BEGIN dbms_datapump_utl.replace_default_dir; END; * ERROR at line 1: ORA-01034: ORACLE not available Process ID: 0 Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0 commit * ERROR at line 1: ORA-01034: ORACLE not available Process ID: 0 Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0 create or replace directory XMLDIR as '/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/rdbms/xml' * ERROR at line 1: ORA-01034: ORACLE not available Process ID: 0 Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0 DROP DIRECTORY ORACLE_OCM_CONFIG_DIR * ERROR at line 1: ORA-01034: ORACLE not available Process ID: 0 Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0 DROP DIRECTORY ADMIN_DIR * ERROR at line 1: ORA-01034: ORACLE not available Process ID: 0 Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0 DROP DIRECTORY WORK_DIR * ERROR at line 1: ORA-01034: ORACLE not available Process ID: 0 Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0 BEGIN dbms_swrf_internal.cleanup_database(cleanup_local => FALSE); END; * ERROR at line 1: ORA-01034: ORACLE not available Process ID: 0 Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0 commit * ERROR at line 1: ORA-01034: ORACLE not available Process ID: 0 Session ID: 0 Serial number: 0 My environment variables are as follows: root@jupiter:~# env | grep ORACLE ORACLE_SID=XE ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0/xe/ Miscellaneous system configuration: root@jupiter:~# df -k /dev/shm Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on shmfs 2097152 624008 1473144 30% /dev/shm root@jupiter:~# sysctl -p |grep kernel kernel.shmmax = 1073741824 I don't know what else to do. I have come to the end of my tether. Hopefully, all of the above will mean something to an Oracle expert, who can point out what I'm missing.