Install Oracle SQL Developer on Ubuntu (and Debian?)

install-oracle-sql-developer.md

1. Install alien and OpenJDK 11

   sudo apt install alien openjdk-11-jdk
   

   ⚠ For Debian, this may require alien >= 8.95.5. See this comment for more information.

2. Download SQL Developer >= 19.2
   https://www.oracle.com/tools/downloads/sqldev-downloads.html

   • Download the Linux RPM

3. Install SQL Developer

   Note: This might take several minutes

   sudo alien -i sqldeveloper-*.rpm
   

4. (Optional) Disable the welcome page

   • If the welcome page shows, just scroll to the bottom and uncheck Show on startup
   • Otherwise, see here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/56484279/399105

5. (Optional) Create a desktop entry

   echo "[Desktop Entry]
   Type=Application
   Name=Oracle SQL Developer
   Exec=sqldeveloper
   Icon=/opt/sqldeveloper/icon.png
   Terminal=false" >> ~/.local/share/applications/sqldeveloper.desktop
   

6. (Optional) Disable unnecessary features

   1. Tools > Features

   2. Uncheck everything that's not needed

      For example, for minimal non-DBA development tasks, the following features are sufficient and everything else (including Database Migrations and Version Control) can be unchecked:

      - Oracle SQL Developer - Schema Browser
      - Oracle SQL Developer - Snippet
      - Oracle SQL Developer - SSH Support
      - Oracle SQL Developer - XML Schema
      

   3. Apply Changes

Thanks for discussion. While the solution proposed by @lobtx works fine, @sgtcortez is right and updating alien package to version 8.95.6 allows to convert the .rpm package do .deb without encountering the dh_usrlocal: error bug. Happy database modeling