The current version of SNODB is supported on UNIX and on VMS platforms. One local copy of the database can serve both platforms as long as the files can be accessed via NFS.
Before you can use the SNO database you must obtain and install version 96a or higher of PACKLIB (part of CERNlib). For Linux platforms, version 97a is required. Version 96a currently has some bugs (cdfrst, cdfsnd and cdsopn) but a set of cd*.f routines is supplied with SNODB to fix these known problems. Note that certain operating systems are no longer supported under 96a, such as SunOS (hence, OS users need to switch to Solaris).
The main engine for installing SNODB is a Perl script. Perl is a language for easily manipulating text, files and processes. Many UNIX system managers use Perl to control complex system-related tasks. Perl is freeware and widely available, and may already be present on your site. You must have Perl version 5 (aka Perl5) on your system to install SNODB (Perl4 won't work). To find out if you have it, type perl -v. Hopefully, you will get an answer like:
This is perl, version 5.003 with EMBED
built under solaris at Jul 3 1996 14:29:53
+ suidperl security patch
Copyright 1987-1996, Larry Wall
Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5.0 source kit.
If not, Perl is either not in your path or it is not present on your machine. The next step is therefore to ask your system manager if Perl is on your system. If it isn't, or you only have Perl4, then have Perl5 installed by following the instructions in subsection 1.1. If Perl is present, but the command above didn't work, then
$ define/translation=concealed Perl_Root sys$share:[perl5_003_04.] $ define PerlShr Perl_Root:[000000]perlshr.exe $ Perl:==$Perl_Root:[000000]perl.exe $ Perldoc == "''Perl' Perl_Root:[lib.pod]Perldoc -t"
If Perl is present you can skip to section 1.2.