The Oracle 11.2.0.2 Instant Client libraries are now available on Linux x86 and x86_64 platforms from the Instant Client home page. And they'll soon be uploaded on ULN for customers with Oracle Linux support to install via the update server. If you are one of the (not so?) few users of command line PHP then you might want to grab the new client because it has Oracle bug 9891199 fixed. You'll also need OCI8 1.4.3 from PECL.

The bug this corrected caused a shutdown delay that caused issues with command-line users and their scripts. Unfortunately, the details of the bug are only available to those with an Oracle subscription. This update will not prevent you from connecting to older versions of the Oracle databases.

This is part 2 of my installation instructions. This is my attempt to provide an updated and simplified reference. I am leaving Part 1 as is, because that part can also be useful.

This updated tutorial shows the steps to installing 11g (versus 10g in the previous example) including the packages you'll need, the commands to make it work and a PEAR version of the install if you choose to go that route.