Using Linux desktop environment with SQL Server

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In this post I want to cover Using Linux desktop environment with SQL Server.

This is a follow up to my last post. For those of you who missed it, my previous post was about your options for running SQL Server on Linux locally on your own laptop.

In that post I discussed Docker, as well as the various versions of Linux you could use for testing purposes within virtual machines. For those of you yet to read it you can in detail here.

Desktop environment

Now, I have been asked a few times whether you should install the Linux desktop environment for whichever distribution you intend to test SQL Server on.

When I say desktop environment what I mean install a version of Linux which allows you to use a graphical user interface. Which you can use instead of just the command line version you might have seen being used.

Some of you may have heard of terms like GNOME and KDE being mentioned previously by more advanced Linux users. Which are effectively different types of desktop environments that you can use with Linux.

In fact, it’s just like how you can use desktops in the Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. Whether you choose to install it or not depends on various things.

For instance, you may be a long-term user of Windows and not comfortable with using just the command line at the beginning.

If this is the case then it might be a good idea to use a desktop environment as well. At least until you get more comfortable with the command line.

However, if you do this make sure you do over time get more comfortable with using the command line. Because I suspect your Linux engineers will only want to use this in production.

Then again, maybe some operations managers want their teams to be able to use a desktop environment for various reasons.

For example, their team members may need to support Linux and only have previous experience with Windows and have limited time for training. Which in this case I would say it would be a judgement call.

However, do bear in mind the recommendation is to use the command line version only in production. Which is like a lot of companies adopting the Windows Server Core stance now.

SQL Server 2019 CTP 2.4

On a related note, as some of you are probably aware by now SQL Server 2019 is coming later this year. Microsoft revealed yesterday that CTP 2.4 is now available. It contains some updates to SQl Server on Linux.

You can read the announcement in detail here.

Final word

I’d love to hear peoples opinions on this with a comment. Mostly due to the fact I suspect there will be a few different ones and others would also be interested.

Do you think people should purely use the command line only? Or instead, do you think a desktop is acceptable in certain situations?