Silent installation of client

There are actually 2 components of such installation: response file, which consists all the arguments for installation and shell call

Response file

Below example of a response file

oracle.install.responseFileVersion=/oracle/install/rspfmt_clientinstall_response_schema_v11_2_0

SELECTED_LANGUAGES=en
UNIX_GROUP_NAME=oinstall
INVENTORY_LOCATION=/u01/app/oracle/oraInventory
ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/11.2.0.4/client_1
ORACLE_BASE=/u01/app/oracle

oracle.install.client.installType=Custom
oracle.install.client.upgrading=false
## I cut the line below for better display
oracle.install.client.customComponents="oracle.sqlj:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.rdbms.util:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.javavm.client:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.sqlplus:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.dbjava.jdbc:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.ldap.client:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.rdbms.oci:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.precomp:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.xdk:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.network.aso:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.assistants.oemlt:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.oraolap.mgmt:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.network.client:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.network.cman:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.network.listener:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.ordim.client:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.odbc:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.has.client:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.dbdev:11.2.0.4.0","oracle.rdbms.scheduler:11.2.0.4.0"

oracle.install.client.schedulerAgentHostName=10.0.54.2
oracle.install.client.schedulerAgentPortNumber=1025
oracle.installer.autoupdates.option=

oracle.installer.autoupdates.downloadUpdatesLoc=

AUTOUPDATES_MYORACLESUPPORT_USERNAME=
AUTOUPDATES_MYORACLESUPPORT_PASSWORD=

PROXY_HOST=
PROXY_PORT=
PROXY_USER=
PROXY_PWD=
PROXY_REALM=

The example above is excerpt from the example file provided by Oracle without comments and a number of other options. The most important here is the Oracle base and home locations and inventory location.
The inventory should be placed in some independent directory, where one may change permissions without affecting the other binaries trees. This is especially important if one plans to install more products as all of them require access to such inventory and may be owned by different users.

Shell call

There is several options to the runInstaller exec. The most simple call looks like this:

./runInstaller -silent -responseFile 

Sometimes -ignorePrereq is useful if one knows, what one's doing.

Pros and cons

The response file preparation may become kind of trouble, but it is worth the effort - after all it is well to apply some convention and such file may become kind of policy document in the client installation regard.
The most important is the installation is way faster than with GUI.