This message could show up as many as 3 times. sorry if it does. I'm unsure if my 25% success rate in getting mails through to freelists is related to the email account I am subscribed with (hence this new one) or some oddity of freelists. About 5 or 6 characters :( ORACLE_BASE is the base directory into which Oracle software in general is installed. ORACLE_HOME is the base directory for a particular release of Oracle. So if you have an install of 9.2 in /u01/app/oracle/ora92 and of 8.1.7 in /u01/app/oracle/ora81 then you would have one oracle_base directory /u01/app/oracle and 2 oracle_home directories Niall Litchfield Oracle DBA Audit Commission +44 117 975 7805 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send email to: oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. -- Archives are at //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/ FAQ is at //www.freelists.org/help/fom-serve/cache/1.html -----------------------------------------------------------------