Installing XE on a Windows server worked always like a charm for me.
Having a Suse 9.3 based virtual server from Strato, I tackled the issue of installing XE on Linux.
As my experience with Linux got a little rusty over the past years (installed a server 4 years ago and no need to touch it again...) I tried installing XE on Suse 9.3, Suse 10.1 and Ubuntu 6.10 ... worked perfectly following the guides from Oracle. :-)
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/database/xe/files/install.102/b25144/toc.htm
http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/linux/install/xe-on-kubuntu.html
