HowTo: Resolve Oracle 11g X-Windows installer issues on UNIX

Have you run the new Oracle 11g installer on *NIX and received a nasty message?

It happened to me this week! So, let's say you download the oracle11g installer for AIX, start x-windows (I prefer CygWin), export your display, test with xclock, then go into the "database" folder and do: ./runInstaller

These are the errors I received:

Starting Oracle Universal Installer...

Checking Temp space: must be greater than 190 MB. Actual 11907 MB Passed

Checking swap space: must be greater than 150 MB. Actual 19968 MB Passed

Checking monitor: must be configured to display at least 256 colors. Actual 16777216 Passed

Preparing to launch Oracle Universal Installer from /oracle/tmp/OraInstall2010-03-11_12-25-37PM. Please wait ...

[oracle@myserver 12:26:03] (brent01) /oracle/INSTALL/database

$ Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: /oracle/tmp/OraInstall2010-03-11_12-25-37PM/jdk/jre/bin//motif21/libmawt.a ( 0509-022 Cannot load module /oracle/tmp/OraInstall2010-03-11_12-25-37PM/jdk/jre/bin//motif21/libmawt.a.

0509-150 Dependent module /usr/lpp/X11/lib/libXt.a(shr_64.o) could not be loaded.

0509-152 Member shr_64.o is not found in archive

0509-022 Cannot load module /oracle/tmp/OraInstall2010-03-11_12-25-37PM/jdk/jre/bin//motif21/libmawt.a.

0509-150 Dependent module /oracle/tmp/OraInstall2010-03-11_12-25-37PM/jdk/jre/bin//motif21/libmawt.a could not be loaded.)

at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibraryWithPath(ClassLoader.java:986)

Well, that's a fine mess!

Before you comb MetaLink and create soft links to other libraries, etc. do yourself a favor and try this:

$ env | grep -i libpath

If your LIBPATH environment variable contains the system's X11 lib, then that's your problem. Mine showed:

LIBPATH=/lib:/usr/lpp/X11/lib:/oracle/oracle8i/product/8.1.7/lib

Removing "/usr/lpp/X11/lib" piece from my LIBPATH resolved the error.

$ export LIBPATH="/lib"

$ ./runInstalle