I installed Notes 8.5 from the rpm (/home/eric/InstallationPrograms/Notes85Gold_RPM/ibm_lotus_notes-8.5.i586.rpm). It seemed to install fine–there are lots and lots of files at /opt/ibm/lotus/notes and Notes shows up in my applications list.
But when I go to start it, it gets as far as the window to accept the license and when I type ‘1’ to accept, nothing more ever happens. And nothing shows up for ps -ef |grep notes.
The same rpm had notes working on openSUSE 11.1. I don’t remember if I had any problems with that install.