Oracle Database Express Edition (XE)

Hello,

I have a the following scenario:

I have to audit a distributed database.This is a project that i have to do, and as i am a student, i only have at disposal free stuff, and i don't know how to start.
First i thought i could have a single oracle xe server installed on my laptop, and then have 2-3 instances(one instance - one database) on the same server, each instance having it's own resources, and then define database links between them , the result would have been a distributed environment.
But after searching the net, i read that with oracle XE , i can only have 1 instance per server.

My laptop has 2 GB RAM, it's an intel pentium dual core, so my resources are limited.

Please give me some idea that could work, so that i can have on my personal laptop a distributed Oracle database(and if it's posible also to tell me how to share the resources between databases, so that all instances start at the same time), only with free stuff, in this case, oracle XE.
One idea would be to install 2-3 oracle servers, but i don't know if my laptop's resources are enough.

The application will be written in Java, but i cannot start to program, until i have on my laptop a functional configuration that i can work on(a distributed database).
Or if you have any idea on how i could do, maybe there are free sites on the internet, where you have space to install a distributed database, and then the application can log to that database and extract information.


Please help me , because i don't know how to do it, and i can't start my project, i've read the net, but couldn't find any useful information about distributed database with oracle xe on one computer.

Thank you so much in advance.