Im an Oracle DBA and know just what you mean (grin).
I had the same experience with Fedora Core 3 and with Centos 3.0 but 
recently installed 10G
on a Centos 4.1 machine without a hitch (it's just a test machine, I 
wouldn't put such a machine in production).
What I did differently this time was install yum and apt with a bunch of 
extra repositories. 
When I got to the pre-install screen I just went down the line and 
installed each missing dependancy and ignored other warnings. 
I was amazed how easily it went this time compared to last!
You're wise to stick to supported platforms though since any trouble you 
run into will land you into unsupported territory.
In the past I've installed 8i on everything from Debian to Fedora Core, 
the trick with those are to install the compatibility libraries  before 
you start.

JD
Dan Lund wrote:

>Oracle supports RHEL, and SuSE, whatever their enterrprise edition is
>called.  I don't ever change the kernel on those Oracle machines, they
>are pretty much installed, hardened, and that's it.
>I've tried installing Oracle10g on CentOS, but it gives odd errors
>during installation.  (I worked with our DBAs on installing it)
>I turned around, slapped RHEL3 on, and blam... worked.
>I wouldn't doubt if there is some Copyrighted string it looks for in a
>text file somewhere just to make sure it's running on an "official"
>RHEL distribution.
>Oh well, it's not my money.  It was a management decision to hold my
>hand back from Shoehorning Oracle into something else. (the last
>bastion of Red Hat in our shop)
>
>--Dan
>
>On 11/21/05, Craig White <craigwhite@azapple.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>----
>>Oracle suggests 'Enterprise' form of Linux. I know that Red Hat is
>>indifferent to processor/binary type but does have 'huge memory/multi-
>>processor (more than 2)' support in 'Advanced Server'
>>
>>If you are going to roll your own kernel, you have lost support
>>anyway...consider something like CentOS and then you can install any
>>base.
>>
>>I imagine something similar exists with SuSE 'Enterprise' products but I
>>am not SuSE knowledgable.
>>    
>>
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-- 
JD Austin
Twin Geckos Technology Services LLC
email: jd@twingeckos.com
http://www.twingeckos.com
phone/fax: 480.288.8195