Running Database Workbench 5 under Wine on Ubuntu 14

First published September 2014, updated October 2014

As we get more requests if Database Workbench works under Wine, we gave it a try, as complete Linux novices.

First things first...

The steps I've taken are the following, after installing Linux, obviously:

  1. Install Wine, using the Ubuntu Software Center
  2. Download Database Workbench
  3. Opened the Downloads folder and used the context menu on the downloaded file, select "Open with Wine Windows Program Loader"
I've installed with the default options, including a desktop icon. This resulted in an icon and a .link file on my desktop, I deleted the .link file.

Starting Database Workbench

On my version of Wine (version 1.6.2), starting Database Workbench failed with a GDI+ error.

In order to fix this, I had to go to the Winetricks application, select the default Wine prefix and then select the option Install Windows DLL or component and click OK.

On the next page, I checked the options "gdiplus" and "gdiplus_xp" and click OK once more, then wait for Wine to install the components.

If you want to connect to Microsoft SQL Server, other ADO or ODBC data sources or use MS Access, make sure to also install MDAC and JET from the list.

In the Wine Configuration dialog, make sure that the option for "gdiplus" is set to "Native".

I then started Database Workbench again and it works! I registered a MySQL server, successfully browsed meta data and data.

I also noticed that when using Windows 7 compatibility in Wine, quite a few labels were cut short, using Windows XP compatibility instead, fixed this.

Things that are missing?

Up till now, I haven't found anything missing!

Conclusion

Database Workbench is certainly usable under Linux, when using Wine.

More information about the features in Database Workbench can be found here.