How to install PEAR on Linux server

Question

Hi
I have PHP installed on one linux server and developers are using it already. I have been given the task to get the oci8 (oracle connectivity) done on this same server. I can not do the reinstall of whole PHP again. During the install of OCI extention I got many errors for missing PEAR files.
So I went through the PEAR document and found "php go-pear.php" command to install the PEAR package. This command fails with below error.
download of http://pear.php.net/get/PEAR?uncompress=yes failed: Failed to parse address "" (0)
The problem is this Linux box does not have direct internet connectivity so I had to download all the required packages as per go-pear.php on my local machine and I am FTPing them to this linux box. I have kept the "PEAR-1.8.1.tar" file in the same directory where go-pear.php file exists but still the above command tries to download it from internet.
Could you please tell me how can I overcome this problem. Please let me know if there are any RPM's that I can use to install PEAR rather that "php go-pear.php" command.
Thanks
Shelly

Answer 1

Hi CJ.
It has been more than 4 weeks that I am strugling to get PHP-Oracle work on my system. You are the only hope right now. I have gone through so many articles and white pages that I am totally confused and starting to hate PHP or actually Suse Linux. :-)
Below are the details of my system.
more SuSE-release
SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 9 (i586)
VERSION = 9
PATCHLEVEL = 4
rpm -qa php* No results
rpm -qa ph* --No results
rpm -qa oracle*
oracle-instantclient-devel-10.2.0.4-1
oracle-instantclient-basic-10.2.0.4-1
* which php*
*/usr/bin/php*
* php -version*
PHP 4.3.4 (cli) (built: Jan 17 2008 09:55:23)
Copyright (c) 1997-2003 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v1.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2003 Zend Technologies
This is what I see on my system
*/usr/bin> ls -l |grep php*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 100308 2008-01-17 05:03 asp2php
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1392441 2008-01-17 04:55 php
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 684 2008-01-17 04:55 php-config
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 593 2008-01-17 04:55 phpextdist
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2082 2008-01-17 04:55 phpize
/usr/bin> whereis php
php: /usr/bin/php /etc/php.ini /usr/lib/php /usr/include/php /usr/share/php /usr/share/man/man1/php.1.gzI see that PHP is already installed on my system which is version PHP 4.3.4.
Question.
1) Do i have to upgrade the PHP version to the latest to get OCI8 configured?
2) If the answer to the above question is Yes than could you point me to any reference doc?
3) If the upgrade is not needed, how can I configure PHP to use OCI8 to connect to database?
Thanks in advance
Shelly