I'm running OpenSUSE right now, and I will say that it (OpenSUSE 12.2) works well and reliably with my G53SX.
🙂 It is a little harder to get installed, but once installed, it runs really well. Can't say how well the database software would work, but LINUX is a good OS and very powerful.
Good luck in your class!
🙂What computer do you have? Get the bit-size that matches your computer (x86 if <=2 GB of RAM). If the only free LINUX Oracle 11g is x64, then I guess you are using that. If your processor supports hardware virtualization, (VT-X,VMT instructions) you can virtualize either, just keep in mind the RAM requirements can be high. I have 16 GB of RAM, so that's not an issue for me.
🙂