This guide helps you to set up the software you need for the OTS course "Working with SQL databases". As a database system we use SQLite which has the advantage that it is very easy to install and that a database is simply stored in a single file.
SQLite comes with a console based application where you can perform queries as well as enter and edit data. You can work through the complete tutorial just using this console application. However, for better usability you can also use a front end with a graphical user interface. We especially recommend DB Browser for SQLite and Sqliteman.
Below you find installation instructions for Windows, MacOS, and Linux.
To get SQLite, download a zip archive from the SQLite project web page. This zip-archive contains an executable file sqlite3.exe. Copy this file to some place on your computer (the desktop should be fine). Double-click on it to start the program. Note that this step is not necessary for the aim of this course as the graphical user interface described below also contains the database system.
To get the graphical user interface DB Browser for SQLite, formerly called Sqlitebrowser, just download the executable installer file. Double-click in it to run it and agree to the license to finish the installation. Unfortunately, the installer does not work with 64bit Windows. If you use this operating sytem, you can download the zipped file, save the contained .exe-file to some location on your computer and run it by double-clicking on it (no installation required).
To get SQLite, download a zip archive from the Sqlite project web page. This zip-archive contains an executable file sqlite3. Copy this file to some place on your computer (the desktop should be fine). Right click on the file and select open and confirm the security message. On some systems, this procedure will fail for security reasons. In this case you need to allow the installation of unsigned applications in the system preferences.
To get the graphical user interface DB Browser for SQLite, formerly called Sqlitebrowser, just download the MacOS drive image. Open it and copy the contained file to some location on your computer. Right click on the file and select open and confirm the security message.
Binary packages for SQLite are available in the repositories for many linux distributions. For Debian/Ubuntu based distributions it can be installed by the following command:
sudo apt-get install sqlite3
Alternatively, a zip-file containing a pre-compiled binary can be downloaded here. So there should be no need for building SQLite from source.
Unfortunately, the available binaries for DB Browser for SQLite (the package is called sqlitebrowser) are a quite outdated and a bit buggy. So we strongly recommend using Sqliteman instead. Under Debian/Ubuntu you can install the package sqliteman easily via apt-get. Alternatively, you can download the up-to-date source code for DB Browser for SQLite and build the software yourselves. If you really want to do this, you need the packages libsqlite3-0, libsqlite3-dev, cmake and7 qt-sdk. Note that the latter is the full QT software development kit which is roughly 250MB download.