After installing the Operating System (in my case usually Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Oracle Enterprise Linux) and configuring all necessary parameters, one has to install the Oracle software. It is usually a good idea to use a response file to do this.
Well, I was quite busy before the holidays, so here is another post I just keep for my reference.
For each database, I believe it is important to automate database shutdown and database startup. This way, in case of an emergency, a systems administrator can start and stop database services without the need for a database administator. Oracle provides an excellent article on this topic, but the Oracle documentation is quite generic. So I hereby provide a step-by-step guide for Red Hat Linux.