Oracle Database Discussions

I have installed 10g.
The listener service does not start.
I have created some databases with sqldeveloper.
The listener does not start.
I use a new OS install, new oracle install, use lsnrctl to start the listener.
It does not restart, and it does not create TNSNAMES.ora
I have tried using net manager and net configuration assistant, but there are still problems with listener, it did not save tnsnames.ora, and for every DB I created, it created twon, one with XTP in it's name, IIRC)

The only wierd things I could find in the logs were that installActions<date time>.log has these entries:

INFO: Setting the PROD_HOME variable of 'oracle.network.listener_10.2.0.1.0' to ''. Received the value from the variable calculation.
INFO: oracle.network.listener Product Location: Empty path specified.
...
INFO: Setting variable 's_net8TNSNamesLoc' to 'NO_VALUE'. Received the value from the variable calculation.

I checked the forums, and there is nothing I could find that I could understand about how to install tns listener, only how to start it on a case by case basis.
The DBs I create work fine, until I reboot the system.
It does not seem to load tnsnames.ora when I start it, or tell it to reload.
Also, ORACLE_HOME is not created during the install.
I put ORACLE in the env vars, but that makes no difference to the rest of the problem.

I have been around for a long time, but never had to do any oracle admin, and this has fully stressed my limited knowledge.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks
spizmar