HOW TO: iSeries Client Access Emulator install

[n8bounds]

!!!!!NOTICE!!!!! !!!!!NOTICE!!!!! !!!!!NOTICE!!!!!

Updated 090715

I made a deb! http://n8.thruhere.net/export/free/ibm5250/

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I'll leave what I had here originally below the dashed line, but there is a newly discovered, simple way that we now share here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=368894


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Problem: I absolutely MUST use an IBM iSeries (AS/400) Client Access Emulator (green screen) in the performance of my official duties at work; and there isn't a debian package from IBM for this (thanks guys).

Background: The company I work for relies heavily on its big IBM box, and getting the iSeries emulator to work on Ubuntu would go a long way towards divorcing us from M$. I'm still kind of a lidiot or a lincompoop or what have you. My first real taste of linux was SUSE. Of course this RPM package installed neatly therein, but Ubuntu is clearly superior to all other distributions on the known internet, so we must find a work-around.

Resolution: Being a responsible forum user, I searched through the posts for someone who had walked this path before more. The best thread I found was here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...hlight=iseries

It wasn't an all inclusive how to, but it was enough get me started. I am providing this as a more comprehensive next step after Sirnigel's gracious posting.

First things first, here's my /etc/apt/sources.list file, remember, something about laws and legal problems has been repeatedly said about some of these somewhere....I'm sure of it.

==================

deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy main restricted
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-security universe
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ breezy universe main restricted multiverse
deb http://wine.lowvoice.nl/apt breezy main
deb-src http://wine.lowvoice.nl/apt breezy main
deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ etch non-free
deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde351 breezy main
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu breezy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://koti.mbnet.fi/~ots/ubuntu/ breezy/
deb-src http://koti.mbnet.fi/~ots/ubuntu/ breezy/
deb http://theli.free.fr/packages/breezy/ ./

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Next, download the iSeriesAccess rpm from IBM, which can be found here:

http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserve...downloads.html

(I got the "iSeriesAccess-5.2.0-1.10.i386.rpm" version.)


You'll need pretty scalable fonts that IBM's program recognizes:

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts
sudo fc-cache -f -v


Recall that IBM doesn't release a DEBIAN package, only an RPM. To install RPMs on Debian, you'll need ALIEN.

sudo apt-get install alien


After it installs, while being in the same directory as your iSeries RPM, do:

sudo alien -i iSeriesAccess-5.2.0-1.10.i386.rpm

(your filename may be different, may the TAB KEY be with you)


Again, most of this I stole from Sirnigel's post, but repeat it hear for convenience. Next, do:

sudo apt-get install libmotif3

then:
sudo apt-get install libxaw6

then:
sudo ln -s /usr/X11R6/lib/libcwbcore.so /usr/lib/libcwbcore.so

then:
sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/lib/libcwbcore.so /usr/lib/libcwbodbc.so

then:
sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/lib/libcwbodbcs.so /usr/lib/libcwbodbcs.so

then:
sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/lib/libcwbrc.so /usr/lib/libcwbrc.so

then:
sudo ln -s /usr/X11R6/lib/libXm.so.3 /usr/lib/libXm.so.3

then:
sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/lib/libcwbcore.so /usr/lib/libcwbcore.so

then:
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libstdc++.so.5 /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5

then:
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libgcc_s.so.1 /usr/lib/libgcc_s.so.1

Now, this is why I had to do a little digging on my own, because this next step was missing. In fact, I wrote this entire post, because I think you should know that you'll also need to do this...
then:
sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

to run, just:
/opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/bin/ibm5250 -LANGID en_us

I made a custom app launcher. If you're used to the windows version from IBM, this should make you feel right at home. Some keybindings were by default a little different, but you just did all that other hard stuff, you can probably point and click your way through the rest of it.

[USRPRF]

Hi

Ok that allow you to launch ibm5250 and create a session with a QPADEV DISPLAY_NAME. But what is more useful in iSeriesAccess for linux is setup5250 that allow you to create several (up to 99) sessions, each with a specific device name. Actually i installed iseriesaccess on FC5 and made it works, and i noticed that without setup5250 you are unabel to connect to an iSeries with device restriction (in that case you can't allow anonymous users to connect with QPADEVXXXX). If i try to run setup5250 i get the following errors:

setup5250: [ ERROR ]: Xt Warning: locale not supported by C library, locale unchanged.
setup5250: [ ERROR ]: Xt Warning: Missing charsets in String to FontSet conversion.

Does anyone know how to handle this? I searched on the net but i didnt find anything.

Thanks

[mdfel]

finally made a complete iSeries Access for linux "localized" install.
it all starts with the fact that iSeries Access doesn't support UTF-8 locales, so that's what i did:
consider that I'm connecting to an iseries host with CCSID = 1144 from a ubuntu 6.06 and i'm italian.
Please use at least version 1.14 of iSeries Access for linux, for it adds the -USE-CP directive

Please use your appropriate language identifiers:

cd /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/mri
sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/mri/it/ it_IT

then add iso8859-1 support to the appropriate file (in my case it):

sudo gedit /var/lib/locales/supported.d/it

and append the line:

it_IT.ISO-8859-1 ISO-8859-1

then execute the command:

sudo locale-gen

now you have to start any ibm iseries application by redefining the LANG variable, so i created the bash script:

#!/bin/bash
LANG=it_IT.ISO-8859-1
/opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/bin/setup5250 -USE-CP1144

please note that in order to use setup5250 you probably have first to add /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/bin to PATH. I also configured ldconfig for ibm libs

Hope this helps

[rgriffin]

This is the bomb. Thanks for posting the very helpful how-to

[elvisd]

Thank you for completing my thread. I'll link this thread on my blog... elvisd.blogspot.com

[Popcorn12k]

I too am trying to install iseries Access on Dapper. I have followed the instructions provided by both elvisd, sirnigel and n8bound. When I get to this command

sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/lib/libcwbcore.so /usr/lib/ libcwbcore.so

I get this response:
ln: target `libcwbcore.so' is not a directory

If I continue through the configuration I get this response when I try to start the application:

ibm5250: error while loading shared libraries: libcwbcore.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I think I have a broken link; however, I don't know why nor how to fix it. Any help would be appreciated.

[n8bounds]

Originally Posted by Popcorn12k I too am trying to install iseries Access on Dapper. I have followed the instructions provided by both elvisd, sirnigel and n8bound. When I get to this command sudo ln -s /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/lib/libcwbcore.so /usr/lib/ libcwbcore.so I get this response: ln: target `libcwbcore.so' is not a directory

If you used the clipboard on that post, you have a SPACE betweeen /usr/lib and libcwbcore.so on the tail of your command there.

[Circus-Killer]

i've followed all the instructions in this thread, but i'm still getting the following error:

5250: [ ERROR ]: NSC0017: Xt Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-normal-*-19-*-75-75-m-*" to type FontSet.

anyone know a solution?

[n8bounds]

Originally Posted by Circus-Killer i've followed all the instructions in this thread, but i'm still getting the following error: 5250: [ ERROR ]: NSC0017: Xt Warning: Cannot convert string "-*-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-normal-*-19-*-75-75-m-*" to type FontSet. anyone know a solution?

Do you have the MS Fonts installed? If you have Universe and Multiverse repositories enabled, I think you can add them via the Add/Remove tool (or synaptics). Alternatively, you could try the Automatix2 scripts. I think I saw something in there about MS Core Fonts.

Cheers

[Circus-Killer]

yes, ms fonts is already installed, that is not the problem.