Oracle – Installing Oracle Datamodeler on Ubuntu 16.04

oracleoracle-sql-data-modeleroracle12cubuntu-16.04

I'm in the process of setting up an oracle development environment on my Ubuntu 16.04 workstation. Installing Oracle 12c was a challenge, but there were several very useful tutorials that put me on the right track. Following Dizwell's instructions — SQL developer was a piece of cake to set up.

Initially, i was able to convert oracle's rpm package to a deb and install it succesfully. The first time I launched datamodeler it worked properly. On all subsequent launches I recieve the following series of errors:

Custom UI class oracle.bali.ewt.olaf2.OracleLookAndFeel not on classpath
Error: Data Modeler can't recognize the JDK version

I've purged and reinstalled the .deb package several times, and I can no longer get it to launch. Any suggestions on how to proceed would be appreciated.

To install DM, I followed Oracle Noob's Instructions as below:

sudo alien --scripts data*rpm
dpkg -i data*deb

I added this line to the datamodeler startup script:

unset -v GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID

Best Answer

Today, I need to get thorough the installation of Oracle Data Modeler (ODM) on my Ubuntu 16.04 and I've done this with success with below steps.

Info: Done as a sudo non-root user

Install Java

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

Set the version of Java (java, javac):

sudo update-alternatives --config java
sudo update-alternatives --config javac

Then check if the version is correct

java -version
javac -version

and you should see something like:

$ java -version
java version "1.8.0_121"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_121-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.121-b13, mixed mode)
$ javac -version
javac 1.8.0_121

Install Oracle Data Modeler

I use most updated, stable version of ODM for the day of writing this answer (v4.1.5).

Before start we need alien converter, so we do:
$ sudo apt-get install alien

Then download the modeler (here)

Use alien to convert the *.rpm package into *.deb

cd <where-you-download-the-rpm-package>
sudo alien datamodeler-4.1.5.907-1.noarch.rpm  # it might take some time
sudo dpkg -i datamodeler_4.1.5.907-2_all.deb

Small note about using --scripts flag (ref:alien manual)

-c, --scripts

Try to convert the scripts that are meant to be run when the package is installed and removed. Use this with caution, because these scripts might be designed to work on a system unlike your own, and could cause problems. It is recommended that you examine the scripts by hand and check to see what they do before using this option.

After this step, you're able to run it form the console:
```
$ datamodeler
```

Note: If you want to run Data Modeler from startup, then you need to add new entry into the /usr/share/applications (for all users) or ~/.local/share/applications/ (only for current user) like the example below.
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Oracle Data Modeler
GenericName=Oracle Data Modeler
Comment=Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler is a free graphical tool that enhances productivity and simplifies data modeling tasks.
Exec=datamodeler
Terminal=false
MimeType=text/plain;
Icon=datamodeler
Categories=SQLEditor;Development;
StartupNotify=true
Actions=Window;Document;

Related Solutions

Sql – Get list of all tables in Oracle

SELECT owner, table_name
  FROM dba_tables

This is assuming that you have access to the DBA_TABLES data dictionary view. If you do not have those privileges but need them, you can request that the DBA explicitly grants you privileges on that table, or, that the DBA grants you the SELECT ANY DICTIONARY privilege or the SELECT_CATALOG_ROLE role (either of which would allow you to query any data dictionary table). Of course, you may want to exclude certain schemas like SYS and SYSTEM which have large numbers of Oracle tables that you probably don't care about.

Alternatively, if you do not have access to DBA_TABLES, you can see all the tables that your account has access to through the ALL_TABLES view:

SELECT owner, table_name
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Although, that may be a subset of the tables available in the database (ALL_TABLES shows you the information for all the tables that your user has been granted access to).

If you are only concerned with the tables that you own, not those that you have access to, you could use USER_TABLES:

SELECT table_name
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Since USER_TABLES only has information about the tables that you own, it does not have an OWNER column – the owner, by definition, is you.

Oracle also has a number of legacy data dictionary views-- TAB, DICT, TABS, and CAT for example-- that could be used. In general, I would not suggest using these legacy views unless you absolutely need to backport your scripts to Oracle 6. Oracle has not changed these views in a long time so they often have problems with newer types of objects. For example, the TAB and CAT views both show information about tables that are in the user's recycle bin while the [DBA|ALL|USER]_TABLES views all filter those out. CAT also shows information about materialized view logs with a TABLE_TYPE of "TABLE" which is unlikely to be what you really want. DICT combines tables and synonyms and doesn't tell you who owns the object.

Sql – How to limit the number of rows returned by an Oracle query after ordering

You can use a subquery for this like

select *
from  
( select * 
  from emp 
  order by sal desc ) 
where ROWNUM <= 5;

Have also a look at the topic On ROWNUM and limiting results at Oracle/AskTom for more information.

Update: To limit the result with both lower and upper bounds things get a bit more bloated with

select * from 
( select a.*, ROWNUM rnum from 
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where rnum  >= :MIN_ROW_TO_FETCH;

(Copied from specified AskTom-article)

Update 2: Starting with Oracle 12c (12.1) there is a syntax available to limit rows or start at offsets.

SELECT * 
FROM   sometable
ORDER BY name
OFFSET 20 ROWS FETCH NEXT 10 ROWS ONLY;

See this answer for more examples. Thanks to Krumia for the hint.