bas-r

Finally i’ve come round to installing SPSS on my linux laptop. Being forced to use Windows can be very frustrating, and although SPSS is closed source and I eventually want to move to R, I’m still forced to use SPSS for now. I need to earn a living.

This is what you need:

• an authorization code for SPSS (mine is a legal one from my employer, intended for windows but happens to work for the linux-version as well and yes, I have permission to install this on my laptop)

• installation disc for SPSS 16 for linux (look on your favourite torrent site for that)
• working installation of Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)

The procedure is fairly simple, mount the .iso (=SPSS installation disc), with gmountiso.

First install gmountiso

sudo apt-get install gmountiso

Now open the program (Applications->System tools->Gmountiso)
Give the iso a mountpoint (for instance, make a folder called spss in your home directory and give that directory in as your mountpoint)

Now open up the disc and install SPSS by running setup.bin:

sudo ./setup.bin

Use your legally purchased authorization code to license your copy of SPSS.

Now you need an old library onto which the binary SPSS blob depends:

sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

Using this older library next to the newer one shouldn’t cause any problems since they are separated.

Now SPSS should run without a problem; move to this path

cd /opt/SPSSInc/SPSS16/bin

now run SPSS with this command:

./SPSS

You can make a shortcut for that on your desktop if you like:

ln /opt/SPSSInc/SPSS16/bin/SPSS ~/Desktop/spss

Happy analyzing!!

/UPDATE 09-03-2010
I had to reinstall the program (Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala now), and received the following error: [code] /usr/share/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:51: error: lexical error or unexpected token, expected valid token [/code] and after switching themes: [code] /usr/share/themes/Dust Sand/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:50: error: lexical error or unexpected token, expected valid token [/code]
To overcome this, disable desktop effects / beryl / compiz, since that seems to confuse the Java installer.

Tags: closed source, intrepid ibex, linux, spss, ubuntu, windows

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 15:26 and is filed under Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.