Install Oracle Database Client Library on RHEL 5.6

Configurations

• RHEL 5.6 running on VMware Fusion 6.0
• OS X 10.9.4 running on MacBook Pro 13" as a host

Objective

• To install Oracle database client library on RHEL 5.6

Problem(s)

For some reasons, the installer would not start because DISPLAY environment variable was not set correctly.

Fix

XQuartz

1. From OS X, start XQuartz
2. Start xterm from XQuartz and enter xhost + to disable access control

RHEL

1. Start RHEL 5.6 from VMware Fusion
2. From OS X host, run ssh -X vagrant@192.168.26.128
3. Check DISPLAY variable by running echo ${DISPLAY}
4. Run xclock from RHEL 5.6

NOTE: DISPLAY variable should already be set automatically. Mine was set like this: DISPLAY=localhost:10.0

Lesson Learned

As you can see from the above, I did not need to manually set DISPLAY variable at all. It was my mistake to blindly follow instructions given by Oracle. I set the DISPLAY variable to some other value, which prevented the installer from working.

In the case of running remote X11 applications on OS X, try connecting it by running ssh -X.