June, 2011

Despite the fact that dbForge products were developed only for Windows platforms, our active users (thanks to Tsvetkov) have found a way to use some features of dbForge Studio for MySql on Linux family operating systems.

Tests were run under .Net Framework 2.0 on Wine emulator.

The following command line functionality works with no visible issues:

• /backup – backups a database
• /restore – restores a database
• /datacompare – launches a data comparison
• /datacompare /sync – launches a database synchronization
• /schemacompare – launches a schema comparison
• /schemacompare /sync – launches a database synchronization
• /dataexport (starting from version 5.0) – exports data
• /dataimport (starting from version 5.0) – imports data
• /execute – executes a script

Testing of the following GUI functionality completed with full success:

• Import Wizard
• Export Wizard
• Backup Wizard
• Restore Wizard
• SQL Formatter Wizard

Data comparison. We were able to perform data comparison operation with some limitations:

• there is no possibility to view differences between the records of the relevant objects
• Data Synchronization Wizard doesn’t work at all

Schema comparison. Testing of the schema comparison functionality finished with the following results:

• Schema Comparison Wizard works properly
• Schema Synchronization Wizard is supported excepting the possibility to view synchronization script for the object. However, you can save documents and use them as a command line argument

Stored procedures debugger. Works properly if you disregard the artifacts.

The rest of the functionality is associated with tool-windows or documents and mostly blocked because of problems with rendering. To avoid the issues associated with tool-windows, change the window status from Docked to Floating and vice versa.

If you are interested in using dbForge Studio for MySql on Linux, you can use the following installation recommendations:

1. Build wine with the following options:

app-emulation/wine-1.3.3 USE="X alsa dbus gecko jpeg ncurses opengl perl png ssl threads
truetype win32 xinerama xml (-capi) -cups -custom-cflags (-esd) -fontconfig -gnutls
(-gphoto2) -gsm (-hal) -jack -lcms -ldap -mp3 -nas -openal -oss -pulseaudio -samba (-scanner)
 -test -win64 -xcomposite"

2. Install to a new folder .wine files (optionally, but preferably)

3. Run:

- sh winetricks gdiplus

Note: Do not use gdiplus from wine (dbforge crashes with an error when starting)

4. Install dotnet20 (in Fedora13 the installation interrupts with an error):

- sh winetricks dotnet20

5. Run:

wine ./dbforgemysqlru.exe (installs with no visible issues)

Our company has been working on its own MySQL GUI client development for over 6 years. Many features were implemented in this product in accordance with our users’ requests, that acted as task originators for us. We are glad that the development process of our MySQL Front-End goes on and on, and we were able to release version 5.0 of the product. For the release of version 5.0, we decided to make a special video telling about the product history. You can see the result.

Funny video about history of our MySQL GUI tool

We did not intend to have a professional video made by clip-makers. The video was shot frame-by-frame using a common digital camera. After that jpg files were rendered to the mp4 video format. Shooting took almost 7 hours. All models were made by hand from plasticine by one of our employees, whose hobby is design and model-making. All of us want to thank him for this!