Now that I have installed MySQL (and finally found out I only installed the server, no client access tools yet), I need some tools to connect, and maintain my database. The first one I am going to check out is the SQLyog MySQL GUI. 

Here is the command to check out if MySQL is installed: ps -A | grep "mysql, the result is 

5002 ?        00:00:00 mysqld_safe
5058 ?        00:00:00 mysqld

Pentaho Open BI Suite, Pre-configured Installation (PCI) – MySQL
Ready to serve. Pentaho Open BI Suite is our application already configured and deployed into JBoss. Connected to a solution repository, it is ready for you to store and run your own solutions. To help you get started, it includes a sample solution for demonstration and reference.
Version: 1.6.0.GA.863 (GA)

I’m downloading now. Hopefully it will connect to my ‘hidden’ MySQL installation. Stay tuned.

Yesterday, I installed MySQL through the terminal command. I was surprised to find out that I could not find any presence of MySQL on my Ubuntu machine. So, I ran the installation command again. This gave me the message:

$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
mysql-server is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Am I too much in Microsoft mode now ? is there another way to start MySQL, or am I trying to find an Enterprise Manager type of tool that isn’t there. If there is any help for me, please reply to this post.

At the moment I am configuring an old desktop, to become my open source system. Ubunty 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) is already installed. So far, I like it. I am used to working with several versions of Windows, it takes only little time to get familiar with the interface. One very interesting thing is the way to install new software. It can be done through the Synaptic Package Manager, a whole library, or you can offcourse find downloads on the www. Right now I am installing MySQL, and I simply took the installation command from the website ( sudo apt-get install mysql-server), and I don’t have to bother about choosing a mirror or location, everything is arranged for me. So, after this, I will install a choice of BI Tools on this machine, and will be building BI solutions.

I am making my first steps in evaluating Pentaho. That means downloading the software, and installing my Virtual PC environment  (Windows 2003, TomCat and MySQL preconfigured) with Pentaho. I have downloaded software from the Pentaho website (community/downloads), and picked out the Pentaho Open BI Suite (Pre-Configured Installation) version for Windows, Release 1.2.0 GA (Build 534). This version promises me: “Ready to serve, Pentaho Open BI Suite is deployed into a pre-installed and configured JBoss Application Server. In addition, it contains ready to use solution repositories including sets of reports demonstrating functionality and to help you get started. The latest version contains a preview of features of the upcoming Reporting Server.” This is an 121 Mb download. The release notes can be found on SourceForge.net. What I also read is “Extract and run”. Promising. The first question I have now (after extracting, that part is easy), is WHAT do I run. I have a start-pentaho.bat file, with the following commands:

@echo on
setlocal
set PENTAHO_PATH=%~dp0
set JAVA_HOME=%PENTAHO_PATH%jre
set PATH=%PENTAHO_PATH%jre\bin
cd data
start start_hypersonic.bat
cd ..\jboss\bin
start run < lines.txt
Hm, let’s first look at the “English – Getting Started with the BI_Platform 1.2.0″ guide, which is intended for people who want to get the platform up and running in 10 minutes. It’s 15:57 now. Some delay, as the files still had to be extracted to my Virtual env.  The documentation is really well structured, as you only need to read the green boxes, when you want to install the stuff on a Windows box.

Two command boxes open, they should, after 30 seconds, tell me “Pentaho BI Platform server ready”. And, localhost:8080 should display a nice Pentaho starting screen. However, none of the above happens. 16:29: Let’s do a reboot.

I’ll be back.

JasperSoft and Pentaho will be the first targets. We will investigate this thoroughly, and both Face (on Pentaho) and Hannibal (on JasperSoft) will be back to report about what we can build with those tools.