Database design tools
I have been looking for database design application on Linux for a while. I even recently started searching for something compatible with Linux through Wine too. The Ubuntu and Debian package database is devoid of anything useful beyond Dia, which I hate for reasons that do not belong to this rant-free blog. There are some tools around for MySQL but it is not the SGDB I’m the most found of. I’m particularily interested in PostgreSQL
It was a revelation to me when I found 2 free (as in beer) design application on the PostgreSQL Wiki. I was even more surprised that both loaded and seemed to work out of the box in just about 30 seconds after their download. I’m not sure about the licensing terms but they certainly look safe to use for FOSS development.
I have not tried either extensively. I just believe both application needs to be linked since they seem to be hard to find. I might review one of them here some day.
Open System Architect
This has an impressive number of button, menus and and various gadgets. It is in fact pretty intimidating at first. It has the feel of a professionally developed application.
It is open-source but sadly does not seem to be actively maintained. This is something I fear I might discover after some prolongued use.
SQLPower Power*Architect
This simple looking application is in Java, which is a showstopper for some people. A good Java application isn’t something that stops me, but I admit Java applications sometimes have problem at setup time if they are not properly packaged.
This application doesn’t have that problem. It run fine when started with a canonical java -jar file.jar command.
The application does look funky a bit on my computer. The fonts are serif and heavily anti-aliased. It look clunky a bit. The screenshots on the site don’t have that problem. It might be a quirk related to my Java distribution or my some font handling problem on my Linux distribution. I need to investigate. That aside, the GUI is simple and no as scary as Open System Architect. If I could fix the font glitch, it will be sweet.
This is also open source. They have a Google Code project.
