Oracle uses only a trivial amount of floating point. I would be *very* surprised if you could measure the amount of CPU time wasted in simulating the Hex Floating point.
Oracle requires raw devices only for the Real Application Cluster (RAC) support. Most Oracle on zLinux shops use normal file system I/O. There is no doubt that putting the databases on a striped logical volume gives the best performance. As for the 100% CPU, I suspect it has more to do with the speed of your machine. The G4 is definitely vintage hardware. Most Oracle performance problems are solved by looking at STATSPACK data and tuning. Tom Russell "Stay calm. Be brave. Wait for the signs." -- Jasper Friendlybear
