How to install Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler 19.2 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

One of the main reasons why I choose Fedora as my main operating system is due to Oracle dependency on rpm package manager and because of the bleeding edge of Open Source technology like the latest kernel version, compilers, new drivers etc.

Unfortunately, very often bleeding edge means bloody edge as I have to spend a lot of my time to troubleshoot and resolve many issues, especially when a new release is published, which happens on average every 6 months.

Most problems are related to wifi that stops to work, VPN, but the most trouble came from Wayland display manager which is replacement for Xorg.

That was some of the reasons why, after more than a decade, I’ve decided to ditch Fedora for Ubuntu.

While Ubuntu is like a heaven for the most Linux users, in my case I need to solve challenges in case I want to use some rpm based software.

In this post I’ll show you how you can install Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler 19.2 (the latest version at the time of writing), which is available only as rpm package (SQL Developer, widely used database toll for DBAs and developers is available in rpm and zip version).

My recommendation is to install Oracle JDK8 LTS (Long Term Support).

Here I won’t cover that part (for Debian based OS like Ubuntu I assume you’ll probably choose jdk-8u231-linux-x64.tar.gz).

Let’s first update the OS with the latest update:

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

You also need to download Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler 19.2 from the following link:

https://www.oracle.com/tools/downloads/sql-data-modeler-downloads.html

Next you need to install allien which converts rpm package into deb.

apt-get install alien
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libllvm7 libpython-all-dev libpython-dev libpython2.7-dev linux-headers-4.15.0-43 linux-headers-4.15.0-43-generic linux-image-4.15.0-43-generic linux-modules-4.15.0-43-generic linux-modules-extra-4.15.0-43-generic
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
  autoconf automake autopoint autotools-dev debhelper debugedit dh-autoreconf dh-strip-nondeterminism libarchive-cpio-perl libfile-stripnondeterminism-perl libltdl-dev liblua5.2-0 libmail-sendmail-perl librpm8 librpmbuild8 librpmio8 librpmsign8 libsigsegv2
  libsys-hostname-long-perl libtool m4 po-debconf rpm rpm-common rpm2cpio
Suggested packages:
  autoconf-archive gnu-standards autoconf-doc dh-make dwz rpm-i18n libtool-doc gcj-jdk m4-doc libmail-box-perl elfutils rpmlint rpm2html
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  alien autoconf automake autopoint autotools-dev debhelper debugedit dh-autoreconf dh-strip-nondeterminism libarchive-cpio-perl libfile-stripnondeterminism-perl libltdl-dev liblua5.2-0 libmail-sendmail-perl librpm8 librpmbuild8 librpmio8 librpmsign8 libsigsegv2
  libsys-hostname-long-perl libtool m4 po-debconf rpm rpm-common rpm2cpio
0 upgraded, 26 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
Need to get 3 741 kB of archives.
After this operation, 11,6 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
...

Next step is to convert Oracle Data Modeler rpm package into deb.

alien datamodeler-19.2.0.182.1216-noarch.rpm 
Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package datamodeler: postinst
Warning: Use the --scripts parameter to include the scripts.
datamodeler_19.2.0.182.1216-2_all.deb generated

At this moment you should have deb version of the Data Modeler.

Now you need to install it.

dpkg -i datamodeler_19.2.0.182.1216-2_all.deb 
Selecting previously unselected package datamodeler.
(Reading database ... 208358 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack datamodeler_19.2.0.182.1216-2_all.deb ...
Unpacking datamodeler (19.2.0.182.1216-2) ...
Setting up datamodeler (19.2.0.182.1216-2) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.27-3ubuntu1) ...

If you try to start Data Modeler, you’ll get the following error:

datamodeler 

 Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler
 Copyright (c) 2008, 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

/opt/datamodeler/datamodeler/bin/../../ide/bin/launcher.sh: line 954: [: : integer expression expected
The JDK (../../jdk) is not a valid JDK.
The JDK was specified by a SetJavaHome directive in a .conf file or by a --setjavahome option.
Type the full pathname of a JDK installation (or Ctrl-C to quit), the path will be stored in /home/jp/.data_modeler/1.0.0.0.0/product.conf

To start Data Modeler successfully you need to edit product.conf file

cd ~/.data_modeler/1.0.0.0.0

vi product.conf 

#Line you need to change: 
SetJavaHome /path/to/JDK8/home

Save and try again to start Data Modeler:

datamodeler

Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler
 Copyright (c) 2008, 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

 

Now you should be able to see Oracle Data Modeler – the latest version, up & running.

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