Getting SAS Software running on CrunchBang Linux 64-bit

This is a follow-up to my prior post on Getting SAS® Software running on Arch Linux 64-bit. In my quest for a new Linux distro the next stop was CrunchBang Linux. I like the look of CrunchBang because it’s lightweight, based on Debian, and uses Openbox by default. Being Debian based, like Ubuntu, I get to re-use the knowledge I gained from using Ubuntu over the last few years (it’s hard not to automatically type apt-get whenever I want to install something!). CrunchBang is not a rolling release distro like Arch or Gentoo but it’s other attributes make it well worth a look. I’ve seen a disclaimer on the web site where they say it “… could possibly make your computer go CRUNCH! BANG!” but from everything else I’ve read it sounds pretty stable. Anyway, I like my (own) computers to go crunch bang every now and then – it’s a great opportunity to learn something new ;)

I installed the CrunchBang 11 “Waldorf” 64-bit testing image in a multi-boot configuration, alongside Arch and Ubuntu, to test it with our existing SAS deployments. These are the steps I needed to take to get the existing SAS software installation running on CrunchBang 64-bit. As with Arch, no changes were needed to the SAS deployments, it just required a few minor changes and additional libraries for the CrunchBang installation.

After CrunchBang had been installed and I’d mounted the SAS installation volume, I tried to run SAS 9.3 M2 first and got the following error: Continue reading “Getting SAS Software running on CrunchBang Linux 64-bit”

Getting SAS Software running on Arch Linux 64-bit

Recently, I’ve been looking to switch from Ubuntu to an alternative distro as the primary Linux platform for our Metacoda development/testing environments, where we also run SAS® software. I’ve run quite a few distros in my time including Slackware, RedHat (pre-Fedora), Fedora, Gentoo & Ubuntu. Ideally I’d like something lighter and perhaps a rolling release too: lighter, so more resources go to SAS; rolling release, because given the choice I prefer regular small upgrades to occasional big upgrades. One of the potential candidates is Arch Linux and so I’ve recently installed it, in a multi-boot configuration with the existing Ubuntu installation, to test it with our existing SAS installations. This is one of the things I love about running SAS on Linux. The SAS software gets installed and configured once and the underlying operating system can be completely upgraded or replaced without having to re-install SAS. It might just take the installation of a few libraries to get everything working again but that’s not much compared to the effort of re-installing and configuring our SAS 9.3 M2, SAS 9.3 M0, SAS 9.2 and SAS 9.1.3 SP4 dev/test environments.

These are the steps I needed to take to get the existing SAS software installation running on Arch Linux 64-bit. No changes were needed to the SAS deployments, it just required a few additional libraries to be added to the Arch installation. If you’re wondering why several SAS versions?, it’s because we need to test our Metacoda software with each of them. The SAS 9.3 and 9.2 installations are 64-bit and the older SAS 9.1.3 installation is 32-bit (so takes a bit more work).

SAS 9.3 (and 9.2)

After Arch had been installed and I’d mounted the SAS installation volume, I tried to run SAS 9.3 M2 first and got the following error: Continue reading “Getting SAS Software running on Arch Linux 64-bit”