Arch Linux

Pank

Member

From: IT

Registered: 2009-06-13

Posts: 371

Installing SAS

Hi,

I want to install the commercial statistical package SAS. Or, to restate, I am forced to use SAS, as my statistical professor this year will not let me use R.

The physical packaging of SAS is quite intimidating in itself. It is a huge binder with several CDs and it seems to lack a `quick-start' guide. The IT guy who usually deals with GNU/Linux OSes had not managed to get it to work on his Ubuntu box and advised me to use an emulated Windows setup. I would rather not though. Anyway, the whole distribution form and mentality surrounding this piece of software is so '90s. My university is not even allowed to distribute an ISO!

Anyhow, jt512 has got SAS working, so it is definitely possible!

So, basically I hope we would be able to gather the community's cumulative knowledge on the subject here and maybe even formulate a guide on the wiki. I will definitely not be the last who will want to install SAS; however, I would hope that the next will have a genuine interest in using SAS (but that is beside the point).

Does anybody have a PKGBUILD that could be used as a starting point?

Thanks,
Rasmus

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Arch x64 on Thinkpad X200s/W530

jt512

Member

Registered: 2009-02-19

Posts: 262

Re: Installing SAS

As I understand it, currently the standard way to obtain SAS is to download it directly from SAS.  It sounds like your institution has a custom SAS distribution on CDs.  So did mine, except that it was all on one CD, and consisted of a single .zip file.

To install SAS I had to do the following (I still have my notes!):

1. cp the CD to the local computer.
2. unzip the file.
3. chmod -R +x SAS92linux

After that, I think I followed the instructions for installing SAS on Unix from SAS's website.  There wasn't much to do: IIRC, I think I had to run the setup script as root, or something.  At that point it was trivial.

Rather than make a package and install the software using a PKGBUILD, I would just install the entire program in its own subdirectory of /opt.

Edit: I almost forgot.  See Installing Sas on Ubuntu, especially Post #22.  Note that apparently the install script specifically requires the BASH shell to run, and that there are certain restrictions on file paths.

Jay

Last edited by jt512 (2010-10-05 00:52:46)