SQL & PL/SQL

All -

I am trying to install a minimum of software on a Linux VM (with not too much disk space and memory) that will allow me to run sqlplus.

I went to the Oracle client download page and downloaded the basic client package and the sqlplus package. (Is there anything else I need to install?)

Should I be able to connect to a data base by simply running sqlplus with the correct configuration, or does some other process need to be running?

I'd like to find a way to simply specify the connection parameters on the command line. I noticed on a forum somewhere that you can append to a sqlplus command line the content of the configuration of a tnsnames.ora file. However, when I did so, I could not connect.

I also tried putting a tnsnames.ora file in the $ORACLE_HOME configuration directory (it was 2 levels down from it, but I don't remember now what it was and don't have access to the machine). This didn't work either.

Can anyone offer a clue as to what I'm doing wrong? And is not possible to construct a sqlplus command line with connection parameters but without the verbose tnsnames.ora data format?

Thanks for any help,
Keith Bennett