you could try stuff besides ODBC... right now I am trying to use TDS (tabular data stream) from a Sun sparc machine... Linux is a little ezier to use.... you may want to look up OpenSource ASE from Sybase... (unsure of the links off hand but look up sybase)
these nodes also have some rather ok material writen by me but a seach for the database you are trying to connect to will turn up better results

Ms SQL Server and perl.
Microsoft SQL to Unix command

A simple Mysql manager writen by me but soon will be upgraded.. feel free to use what ever you can from it.. It requires CGI , DBI ,and DBD::mysql
MySQL Database Manager