Installation ?????

I m trying to Install Oracle 8i on Sun Solaris 8.....I have read the installation manuals....everything was ok, but

what confused me was directories ORACLE_BASE, ORACLE_HOME, u1, u2, u3 ?????????????????

Can anybody pls. tell me how many directories should i create, subdirectories and in which directory should i place Oracle software ,Data files logfiles parameter files etc...
(Knowledge of UNIX very limited----newbie)

Thnx....
OCP Guy

actually ORACLE_HOME and ORACLE_BASE will end up being environment variables pointing to specific directories where the Oracle database and software has been installed. Typically these variables would be added to the .profile of your 'oracle' user. As far as the u1, u2, u3 go, when I installed Oracle it wanted to use the d01, d02, and d03 directories on my Sun box. I know there is a specific reason for this and I believe it has to do with performance, but I do not have the specific information.

Here are a great couple sites I use when looking for Oracle info:
http://metalink.oracle.com/
and
http://www.orafaq.com/faq.htm

I hope this helps.