I was able to compile freetds-0.64 on SUSE (2.6.16.21-0.8-ppc64).
Then I compiled unixODBC to make use of it.

Use tsql to check your connection:

jrigler:/usr/local/bin> tsql -H $host -p $port -U $user -P $password
locale is “en_US.UTF-8”
locale charset is “UTF-8”
1

Now set up odbc.ini so that isql will work:

jrigler@nad0019linux01:/usr/local/etc> more odbc.ini
[ODBC Data Sources]

[DBAR]
Driver = /usr/local/lib/libtdsodbc.so
Description = DBAReporting
Trace = Yes
Server = nad0019st01.brinksinc.com
Database = DBAReporting
Port = 1433
TDS_Version = 8.0
DontDLClose = 1

Finally you can test your connection with isql:

isql -v $DATASOURCE $USER $PASSWORD