SDE 10 SP1 upgrade from SDE 9.3.1 on Linux

[SherrieKubis]

Current environment:
SDE 9.3.1 SP2 Linux 64-bit for SDE application server
Oracle 11.1.0.7 Linux-64 bit RAC

Would like to upgrade to:
SDE 10 SP1

Documentation states that to perform an upgrade the geoprocessing tool from ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Server 10 or ArcGIS Engine must be used. Alternatively, a python script must be used.

ArcGIS Desktop is not available for Linux.  I don't want to get into installing ArcGIS Server on this machine just to upgrade.  I am now starting to look at Python scripting.

Is anyone else encountering this situation, or found a way around this?  If indeed I need to now install and manage another product on my application server, why is ESRI moving in this direction? Is this another license? 

Not that SDE was simple to install before, it now looks like it in hindsight given this new direction!

[Anonymous User]

Original User: sherriekubis

I now see that I misunderstood the python scripting alternative.  The python script method requires arcpy, meaning ArcGIS Server must be installed, and a license is needed.

Does this now mean that to upgrade SDE I need an additional license for ArcGIS Server? That doesn't sound right.

Also, as noted in other questions about this, all of the python samples are for Windows. Does someone have an example for Linux?

I want to protest to ESRI that another avenue to upgrade SDE needs to be found.