Yes, I can connect using sqlplus as well as toad. I can also ping the DB machine and tnsping is successful. This makes me believe that everything on the oracle client is ok. I am also providing the "connect" code here that I am using:

# DBI Initializations
my $driver = 'Oracle';
my $hostname = 'host=oradev;sid=oradev;port=1521';
my $user = 'user';
my $password = 'password';
my $dsn = "DBI:$driver:$hostname";

my $dbh = DBI->connect($dsn,$user,$password) or croak "Error $DBI::err
+str connecting to $dsn\n";
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the last line is where it fails and gives me the error message!