System prerequisites

Ensure that your system meets all prerequisites before installing the product. Failure to meet the prerequisites causes the installation or configuration of the compiler to fail.

The requirements for installing IBM® COBOL for Linux® on x86 1.1 are listed below.

Supported platforms

You can use any of the following little endian operating systems on compatible x86-64 servers to run IBM COBOL for Linux on x86 1.1 and its generated object programs:

  • Red Hat® Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.8 or higher
  • Ubuntu Server (Ubuntu) 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS, or higher LTS

Hardware requirements

IBM COBOL for Linux on x86 1.1 and its generated object programs run on any x86-64 processor that is supported by your operating system distribution.

It is also recommended that you meet the following requirements:

  • Approximately 260 MB for product packages
  • Minimum of 2 GB of hard drive space for paging
  • Minimum of 512 MB for temporary files
  • 2 GB RAM minimum; 4 GB or more RAM recommended
Note: High levels of optimization and large applications can require more space for paging and temporary files, and can require more RAM.

To verify that you have enough hard disk space available, see Verifying the amount of hard disk space available.

Software requirements: required programs

To determine which GNU and Perl packages are required to run the compiler on your operating system, consult the relevant table below. To verify that the required packages are installed, see Verifying that the required GNU and Perl packages are installed.

Table 1. Minimum required GNU and Perl packages to run the compiler and build 32-bit COBOL applications on RHEL 7.8 or higher
Package name Version requirements Architecture requirement
gcc 4.8.5 x86_64
glibc.i686 2.17 i686
glibc-devel.i686 2.17 i686
libgcc.i686 4.8.5 i686
libstdc++.i686 4.8.5 i686
libquadmath.i686 4.8.5 i686
perl 5.16.3 x86_64
Table 2. Minimum required GNU and Perl packages to run the compiler and build 32-bit COBOL applications on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS, or higher LTS
Package name Version requirements Architecture requirement
gcc-multilib 4:5.3.1 amd64
libc6:i386 2.17 i386
libc6-dev:i386 4.8.5 i386
libgcc1:i386 4.8.5 i386
libstdc++6:i386 4.8.5 i386
libquadmath0:i386 4.8.5 i386
perl 5.18.2 amd64

To view the online documentation for IBM COBOL for Linux on x86 1.1, you need the following environment and tools:

  • A graphical desktop environment that supports web browsers and PDF viewers
  • A frames-capable HTML browser (to access the IBM Documentation and other web pages)
  • A PDF viewer (to access PDF documentation and licenses)

Software requirements: optional programs

To use IBM COBOL for Linux on x86 1.1 with optional programs such as Db2® and CICS®, additional products are required:

  • Db2: COBOL applications that embed EXEC SQL statements require IBM Db2 Advanced Enterprise Server Edition for Linux, UNIX®, and Windows™ 11.1, 11.5, or higher.
    Note: If you are using a Db2 version that is earlier than Db2 11.5.6, you need to contact COBOL.Linux.Trial@ca.ibm.com to get and apply some additional copybook files.
  • CICS: COBOL applications that embed EXEC CICS statements require either of the following products:
    • TXSeries® for Multiplatforms 9.1 PTF2 or higher
    • CICS TX 11.1

Verifying the amount of hard disk space available

IBM COBOL for Linux on x86 1.1 requires about 150 MB of hard disk storage space.

You can use the following command to determine the amount of space available in the default installation location (/opt/ibm):
df -h /opt
If you plan to install the compiler in a nondefault location, you can use the following command:
df -h installation_path

where installation_path represents the nondefault location.

Verifying that the required GNU and Perl packages are installed

If you use the install utility to install the compiler, you do not need to manually install the dependencies, because the install utility uses yum (on RHEL 7.8 or 7.9), dnf (on RHEL 8.0 or higher), or apt-get (on Ubuntu) to download and install the dependencies. If you are not using the install utility, follow the instructions in this topic to verify the required GNU and Perl packages that are installed.

For lists of the required packages and version requirements for each supported Linux distribution, see Software requirements: required programs.

All required packages can be obtained from your OS installation media.

To verify that the correct versions of the required packages are installed on your system, enter the following command once for each required package:
  • On RHEL
    rpm -q package_name
  • On Ubuntu
    dpkg -l package_name

If the package was installed, this command returns the name and the version number of the package. The version number must be the same as or higher than the version required for that package.