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Prerequisites are what you, your machine, and your distribution
require before you will be able to successfully install or use DB2.
The required prerequisites come straight from
IBM DB2 Universal Database for UNIX Quick Beginnings.
The suggested prerequisites come from experience.
For your convenience, I've divided them into hardware and software requirements.
Hardware prerequisites - Processor
x86 compatible (for example, Intel, AMD, or Cyrix).
I've successfully installed DB2 Version 7.1 on a Pentium Pro 200 and a
Pentium II 350. Your experiences with other x86 processors would be
appreciated.
- Memory
For application development, I've found 96 MB of
RAM is enough to run a small database
and test out your applications. Even the Control Center
responds acceptably if your processor speed is fast
enough. In my case, I was working with a Thinkpad 600 equipped
with a Pentium 233 MMX processor and 96 MB of RAM.
However, more memory is recommended if you're putting your
database into production or running multiple services.
- Free disk space
Of course, this depends on the components you install,
but for a typical installation of the DB2 Version 7.1 server,
the Administration Client, the Application Development Client,
the documentation, and the creation of a sample database,
you will need about 350 MB of free disk space.
Software prerequisites - glibc
2.1.2 or greater. This can be a tough part of Linux to upgrade on
its own, so if your current distribution doesn't meet this requirement,
I would strongly suggest upgrading your entire distribution. For example,
I tried upgrading only the glibc portion of
TurboLinux 4.0 from 2.1.1 to 2.1.3
and ran into a whole world of trouble.
DB2 Version 7.1 should work with glibc 2.1.1.
IBM sets prerequisites based on the systems with which they tested.
- kernel
2.2.12 or greater. I've upgraded to both
2.2.19 and 2.4.3 and recompiled
the kernel for my own purposes, and DB2 seems to work as well as before.
DB2 Version 7.1 should work with a minimum of kernel 2.2.10.
IBM sets prerequisites based on the systems with which they tested.
- libncurses
4.x. For db2setup to work correctly,
this version of the library must be available on your system with the following
pathname: /usr/lib/libncurses.so.4.
- libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2
A file or symbolic link by this exact name is mandatory.
On most distributions, this is a symbolic link to libstdc++-2.9.0.so,
but on several recent distributions this is a symbolic link to
libstdc++-2.10.0.so.
Note:
In previous versions of this HOWTO, I stated that the exact version
of libstdc++-2.9.0.so was mandatory. I was wrong.
- pdksh
5.2 or greater. This is a public domain version of the
Korn shell that both the DB2 installer and the DB2 commands
require. You cannot do anything with DB2 without installing pdksh.
- rpm
3.0 or greater. DB2 for Linux is distributed
as a number of RPM packages, so you won't get far without
this piece of software. For information on installing DB2 on distributions
without using RPM, see Section 5.
- Java
The IBM Developer Kit for Java, 1.1.8 or
1.3, is an optional component, but is required to:
use the DB2 Control Center to administer your databases using
a graphical user interface
create or run Java applications, including stored procedures
and user-defined functions
As of this writing, the minimum required level of the
IBM Developer Kit for Java 1.1.8 is the March 22, 2000 release.
You can get the IBM Developer Kit and Runtime Environment
for Linux, Java Technology Edition, from the IBM Java Developer Kit
downloads web site as follows:
Please note: Other versions of Java, such
as the Blackdown or Sun JDKs, have not been tested with DB2 and
are not supported by IBM. And no, none of the distributions
I have seen so far package the IBM JDK. But do yourself a favour,
and get the IBM Developer Kit for Java.
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Web browser
DB2 calls the netscape command when you:
The easiest approach is to install Netscape Navigator or Communicator
on your system. Netscape version 4.72 or above
is required to display the Business Intelligence Quick Tour, because of
its extreme use of JavaScript.
To use a browser other than Netscape to display online help
or information, create a link called netscape
to your preferred browser executable. The link must appear in
your PATH. For example, to display online help with mozilla,
you could create a link in /usr/local/bin
with the following command:
bash# ln -s /usr/bin/mozilla-bin /usr/local/bin/netscape |
In the following table:
unknown indicates that I don't
know what the default level is, and I haven't installed DB2 on this distribution
(your feedback is welcome!)
okay indicates that I don't
know what the default level is, but it worked when I installed DB2
** as a prefix indicates that the default level is not acceptable
and must be replaced or supplemented with a compatible library
Table 1. Prerequisite levels, by distribution | Distribution | glibc | Linux kernel | libncurses | libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so | pdksh | rpm |
|---|
| Caldera OpenLinux 2.4 | 2.1.2 | 2.2.14 | okay | 2.9.0 | 5.2.14 | okay | | Debian 2.2 | 2.1.3 | 2.2.17 | okay | 2.10.0 | 5.2.14 | 3.0.3 | | Linux-Mandrake 7.2 | 2.1.3 | 2.2.17 | okay (4, 4.2, 5, & 5.1) | 2.9 | 5.2.14 | 3.0.5 | | Red Hat 6.2 | 2.1.2 | 2.2.14 | okay | 2.9.0 | 5.2.14 | okay | | Red Hat 7 | 2.1.92 | 2.2.16 | **5.1 | **2.9.6 | 5.2.14 | 4.0 | | Red Hat 7.1 | 2.2.2 | 2.4.2 | **5.2 | **2.9.6 | 5.2.14 | 4.0.2 | | SuSE 6.2 | 2.1.1 | 2.2.10 | unknown | 2.9.0 | 5.2.14 | okay | | SuSE 6.3 | 2.1.2 | 2.2.13 | okay | 2.9.0 | 5.2.14 | okay | | SuSE 7.0 | unknown | 2.2.17 | okay | unknown | 5.2.14 | okay | | TurboLinux 6.0 | 2.1.2 | 2.2.13 | okay | 2.9.0 | 5.2.14 | okay |
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