There is an open bug (8930861) with Oracle 11g R2 that causes the Database Configuration Assistent (DBCA) to not start on 32 bit Linux. If you see somthing like
An unexpected error has been detected by HotSpot Virtual Machine:
#
# SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0xa2bbd36e, pid=19555, tid=3085252272
#
# Java VM: Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (1.5.0_17-b02 mixed mode)
# Problematic frame:
+# C [libnnz11.so+0x3c36e]+
you have probably hit it. (The above message is copied since I have meanwhile deleted the 32 bit VM. In my case the address was slightly different but the rest of the message was obviously coming from the same underlying reason.) The current workaround is to install on a 64 bit Linux. Given that probably no-one is running a 32 bit version in production these days, this seems acceptable. Also, chances are that this will never be fixed because of the aforementioned lack of 32 bit versions running in production.