NI-VISA Linux installation problem

[Tom_D]

Hello,
I'm trying to install NI-VISA 3.4.0 on a pc running Mandrake Linux 10.1 official.
The INSTALL script doesn't give me the option to install NI-VISA in another location than the default /usr/local. I've read some comments in the INSTALL script saying that rpm seams to have problems with package relocation (which is installing a package to another directory than the default one I presume).
I changed the following line in the INSTALL script

strDefaultInstallDir="/usr/local"

to

strDefaultInstallDir="/some/other/directory"

in order to specify another default directory. When I run this adjusted INSTALL script the selected packages and their paths appear OK (right before the continue confirmation)
The installation ends successfully but NI-VISA is still installed in /usr/local instead of the "new" default directory.

Is there a way of installing NI-VISA in another place than /usr/local ? Maybe backing up the original /usr/local to /usr/localOLD, installing NI-VISA to /usr/local , renaming /usr/local to the directory of choice and then restoring /usr/localOLD to /usr/local ?
Does anyone have experience with this?
Thanks in advance,
Tom

[Shawn B.]

Tom,

Many versions of rpm have had problems with package relocation.  Because of this the NI-VISA installer will only install to /usr/local.  The method you described would allow you to install to a different location.  However, while all of the files are installed under /usr/local/ you will end up with some broken links that are created.  So you will also have to find and repair those links.

Shawn B.
National Instruments

[JoshuaP]

When you run the INSTALL script try to use --norpm as an option. That should allow you to specify a new location. If the installer fails check to make sure all of the required libraries are on your system. On mine I was missing libdb.so.2 so I had to create a link for libdb.so.2 to libdb.so.3.

I hope this helps out.

-Josh

[chuck_theobald]

I am having a similar installation problem on Gentoo Linux. I have a libdb.so, but no libdb.so.2 or libdb.so.3. I tried to link to libdb.so.2, but got a message:

/mnt/cdrom/bin/rpmq: /usr/lib/libdb.so.2: no version information available (required by /mnt/cdrom/bin/rpmq)

My install script does not have a --norpm option. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Chuck

[chuck_theobald]

FYI, I got around this by using the rpm2targz package. Ran this on each LabView rpm and untarred. Maybe could have used the rpm package instead. Anyway, this, along with linking to libLVMesaGL.so.3:

cd /usr/local/natinst/LabVIEW-8.0/linux
ln -s libLVMesaGL.so.3 libOSMesa.so.4

got LV8 working for me.

Chuck