What I gushed over a few posts ago has finally happened! SQL Server has a come to Linux (sort of). The database engine is now available as CTP1 and you can get it by adding the repository and running the setup script.
You can follow the walk through for your favorite flavor of Linux, so I won’t repeat that here. it’s really very simple, just a matter of pointing to the correct repository and then apt-get install (Ubuntu). It comes with a setup script that pretty much does all the heavy lifting for you. Keep in mind that this is just for preview so there’s not a lot of options and it sticks everything in a single set of directories (logs/data/tempdb).
I had a small problem when I did the install, but it turned out I just needed to update a few packages. In the event you’re not a Linux person, here’s the easiest way to fix this:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
There’s a lot of stuff to dig into in this release, and as newer versions come out I’ll get more in-depth, but I just wanted to make a quick post about what I did in my first thirty minutes.
After the install, I connected via SQLCMD, as there is no SSMS in Linux yet, using the sa and sa password set in the install. I then created a table, dropping a single row into it and then selecting. Not terribly complex stuff.
I took care to try different cases, adding and neglecting brackets ‘[]’ and semicolons. It responded how I expected it to react if I was on a Windows system, which is very reassuring. It’s nice that my T-SQL skills translate seamlessly to the Linux environment, at least internally to SQL Server.
Next, I put my box ‘U64’ on the network and lo-and-behold I was able to remote into it by its Linux hostname from SSMS 2016 on a Windows machine. No additional setup was required. Microsoft appears to be taking this integration of the Linux and Windows environments seriously.
I then created a SQL login for myself and logged in that way. No issues.
Now, as fun as this was, there’s a whole lot missing. The list includes, but is not limited to:
- Full-text Search
- Replication
- Extended Stored Procedures
- AD authentication
- SQL Server Agent
- SSIS
- SSAS
This is of course just for CTP1, so a lot of these items will probably show up later. I mean, SQL Server without the SQL Server Agent? That doesn’t even make sense (I’m looking at you Express Edition). There is sort of cascade effect as other items like Maintenance Plans and such that rely on these missing features also being MIA.
Also, larger items like Availability groups will also be absent because there’s no Linux analogue for them currently. From what the SQL Server team said in their AMA on reddit they’re toying around with RedHat clustering as a replacement for this in the Linux environment.
The last thing I did before the end of my 30 minutes was to look at the version. As you may or may not know, the Linux version is based on SQL Server vNext, which (as the name implies) is the NEXT version of SQL Server. There was some talk about it being a port of SQL Server 2016, which does not appear to be the case.
SELECT @@VERSION
----------------------------------------------------
Microsoft SQL Server vNext (CTP1) - 14.0.1.246 (X64)
Nov 1 2016 23:24:39
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
on Linux (Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS)
Note that SQL Server 2016 is version 13.0.
And that’s it! As mentioned before I’ll be doing deeper dives into this as time goes on, at the very least with each CTP. But I have to say I’m happy with the results so far. Everything (that was available) worked as I expected it to work. Nice work MS!
-Charlton Julius
CJ Julius 
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