First steps

To get started quickly with Informix® 12.10 software development, /opt/IBM/informix/FirstSteps contains topic-specific subfolders of labs and demonstrations. A symbolic link to the FirstSteps folder is included on the GNOME desktop. Information about the labs and demonstrations can also be found at the following links:

Within each subfolder is a README file that provides a brief introduction of the objective of the demonstration or lab. As part of your development activities with Informix 12.10, you can practice running SQL language scripts either interactively or as command scripts. The standard tool that comes with each Informix installation is called dbaccess. You start the dbaccess utility either from a command line in a terminal window, or by double-clicking the dbaccess icon on the GNOME desktop. The HCL OpenAdmin Tool (OAT) for Informix also provide interactive SQL features.

The HCL Informix Virtual Appliance single-instance demonstration

The demo_on Informix instance is preconfigured with the stores database. The HCL Informix Virtual Appliance is configured to start the demo_on instance automatically each time the virtual appliance is powered on and to stop the demo_on instance each time the virtual appliance is powered off. Use the following commands if you want to recreate the demo_on instance or if you want to manually set environment variables that affect the behavior of the demo_on instance. See the following links for a complete list of scripts and their descriptions.

The setDemo script is used to set the environment variables for the demo_on instance. The convenience scripts that create, start, stop, and remove the demo_on instance use the setDemo script, so you are not required to explicitly source this script before you run the convenience scripts. However, to run the dbaccess utility from a command prompt or to perform other actions in the context of the demo_on environment, you can explicitly source the setDemo script to set up the demo_on environment.

In addition to the basic configuration, the demo_on instance also provides these helpful enhancements for your development activities:

A default temporary dbspace, called tempdbs (10 MB)
A default and system smart blob space, called sbspace (50 MB)
One external space to support the Basic Text Search (BTS) extension, called bts_extspace (located in /data/IBM/informix/demo/demo_on/bts_extspace)
One bts virtual processor (VP) to use the BTS extension
One idsxmlvp virtual processor (VP) to enable additional built-in XML capabilities in Informix
One jvp virtual processor to enable Java™ user-defined routines in Informix