Preface
In some unoccupied (by work, family...) time I took my new laptop to install the SAP Test Drive on it. I already did that back in 2005 or so on a desktop PC with some older OpenSuSE, but in the mean time I installed newer Linux versions so that installation vanished.
I want to describe here which steps are necessary (or might be necessary) to successfully install and run the test drive on a OpenSuSE 11.2 (when I write this it is the newest released OpenSuSE version). Of course there is no guarantee that, by following exactly those steps, you will install the SAP software without any problems - but if you are lucky you even have less problems than I had.
While some of the steps described here came from experiences of the first install they might not be necessary any more - so please do not complain if your installation works without one of those steps.
First of all you should be familiar with the OpenSuSE YAST utility, especially to set up the network environment. Also using the command line prompt should be no problem.
I used a FujitsuSiemens Amilo PC with
- 2 hard disks with 2x450GB
- CD/DVD burner
h2. Getting and preparing the Linux systemBefore we start installing the SAP software we have to install the Linux operating system in a way that later the SAP installation will run without major hassle.
You can get your copy of OpenSuSE at http://www.opensuse.org/ , be sure to get the 64 Bit PC version of it. I used the network installation for here you only have to download the small installation CD and all other necessary software is loaded during installation from the internet.h3. PartitioningThe first pitfall is when you are asked to set up the partitions used for Linux. The MS-Windows on the laptop is installed on the first hard drive (/dev/sda) so I used the complete second hard drive (/dev/sdb) for Linux.
Here is my partition list:
| Device | Size | File system | Mount point |
|---|
| /dev/sdb1 | 8.5GB | Swap | |
| /dev/sdb2 | 50GB | Ext4 | / |
| /dev/sdb2 | 407.26GB | Ext4 | /home |
The swap partition should not be too small - at least it should have 8GB for the SAP test drive to run smoothly. In / the linux software will be installed plus the SAP software in /usr/sap and the SAPGUI in /opt/SAPClients - so make sure this partition has enough space for all these bytes.
The rest is for the /home partition taking all photographs to be edited with digikam, DOSBox games and whatever you need.
h3. Software Be sure to install the SUN Java JRE - it works perfectly with the test drive so there is no need to install any other JRE (as you might read in the original installation description).
Also you will need to install the libstdc+-33 and libstdc+44 packages in order for the SAP program niping to run. h2. Installing the Test DriveFirst get your copy of the test drive from the SDN at http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/nw-downloads.In the install I made before I came across a problem I cannot remember but I solved it by setting a environment variable LIBXCB_ALLOW_SLOPPY_LOCK to 1. I do not know if this is still necessary but I did it anyway by placing two scripts (for sh and csh) in /etc/profile.d. Have a look into the other scripts there and you will know what to do.
Now it is time to install the test drive (as root) by starting the install script. After giving passwords for the created linux users you might want to get some coffee.
After the installation I ran script /home/n4sadm/S99_n4shost.sh once as n4sadm.
h3. Set up the network settingsYour IP address should be a static one, so if you have a DHCP server, do not use it here.
After the installation there should be a /etc/hosts entry for host name n4shost - keep the IP address given here in mind.
Set up the eth0:0 interface be adding an alias 0 for your eth0 interface (given you have one, which is pretty likely these days), here you use the IP address of the n4shost entry.
Be sure that your /etc/hosts entries are correct and the command hostname returns only the hostname without the domain name.
Here are the relevant entries from my /etc/hosts:
| 127.0.0.1 | localhost |
| 192.168.1.205 | hesiod | hesiod |
| 192.168.155.1 | n4shost |
| 192.168.1.206 | hesiod |
| 127.0.0.2 | hesiod.hades | hesiod |
You should start the interfaces at system start (set up in YAST).
After everything is set up correctly you can test the settings (as n4sadm) with 'niping -t'.
h3. Start the SAP systemNow it is time to start the test drive system. I na console 'su' to n4sadm and start the server with 'startsap n4shost'.
I ran into a problem when starting the database, the logfile said "Error! XUser not found!". After some digging with Google I came across this helpful forum thread: Re: SOS! The database does not start and the license key can not be install, especially the post by Hannes Kuehnemund saved my day (thanks if ever he reads this).Once you know your SAP system works you are ready to get the license key file, so - as described in the installation guide - determine your hardware key with '/usr/sap/N4S/SYS/exe/run/saplicense -get'. Get your license key at http://www.sap.com/minisap . h2. Installing the SAPGUIFirst download the latest PlatinGUI from ftp://ftp.sap.com/pub/sapgui/java/ .
