After much work (and tye and lhoward's assistance), here's what I've got to work:
BEGIN {
  unless ($ENV{BEGIN_BLOCK}) {
    $ENV{ORACLE_HOME}     = '/common/oracle/product/v8.1.6';
    $ENV{LD_LIBRARY_PATH} = "$ENV{ORACLE_HOME}/lib";
    $ENV{TNS_ADMIN}       = '/common/oracle/env';
    $ENV{BEGIN_BLOCK} = 1;
    exec 'env',$0,@ARGV;
  }
}

use DBI;

$dbh = DBI->connect('','scmuser/scmuser@itopstst','','Oracle');
die $DBI::errstr unless defined $dbh;

[download]
lhoward says this is a problem with the way Solaris handles locating dynamically loaded libraries. ld.so.1(1) caches the LD_LIBRARY_PATH, so any changes we make don't matter. env(1) forces this to update.

*phew*

In reply to RE: Re: DBI, DBD::Oracle and LD_LIBRARY_PATH by Shendal
in thread DBI, DBD::Oracle and LD_LIBRARY_PATH by Shendal

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