Need a replacement for Visio

[strycat]

I don't even need something as powerful as Visio. I just need something to do ERDs. I've tried Dia but that doesn't have any way to connect to an existing database and at the very least pull out the tables and their fields. Is there something that I can use to quickly create a databaes diagram from an existing database?

Thanks in advance.

[arochester]

Re: Need a replacement for Visio

Googled: linux Entity-relationship model

Have you seen e.g.:

"Designing a Database ER Model with Dia"- http://vailo.wordpress.com/2008/07/0...odel-with-dia/

"Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) program for Linux?" - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5...gram-for-linux

"Drawing Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)" - http://tboxmy.blogspot.com/2009/02/d...agram-erd.html

[strycat]

Re: Need a replacement for Visio

Googled: linux Entity-relationship model

Yep tried that. All morning so far nothing that seems to work well.

Have you seen e.g.:

"Designing a Database ER Model with Dia"- http://vailo.wordpress.com/2008/07/0...odel-with-dia/

As i said in my post Dia is too cumbersome. I want something that will at the very least pull out the existing tables and fields and not make me have to type everything. We're talking about several hundred tables here.

"Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) program for Linux?" - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5...gram-for-linux

Yes saw that. MySQL workbench doesn't seem to work with non-MySQL databases. Right now I'm dealing with Oracle, but would like something that could handle all kinds. The Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler looks promising, but they only have an rpm available for linux and of course i'm using kubuntu.

"Drawing Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)" - http://tboxmy.blogspot.com/2009/02/d...agram-erd.html

ferret looks like it might be useful as they continue to develop. However it doesn't have any ability to diagram an existing database.

[jeremy1701]

Re: Need a replacement for Visio

Have you tried Kivio? I was able to use it for some projects, but it does lack in some areas. You can get add-on stencils at price:

http://www.koffice.org/kivio/

http://www.thekompany.com/projects/kivio/

[strycat]

Re: Need a replacement for Visio

Have you tried Kivio? I was able to use it for some projects, but it does lack in some areas. You can get add-on stencils at price:

http://www.koffice.org/kivio/

http://www.thekompany.com/projects/kivio/

It could be great, but the 1st link you provided says "Kivio is currently looking for volunteers to make it ready for release." and there is no where to download it.

The 2nd link in the FAQ points out that "Kivio requires the KDE/KOffice libs to compile. Kivio is tightly coupled to KDE/KOffice through the KParts architecture. Making the changes which would allow for a non-KDE version of Kivio would be quite a chore. " Honestly I don't reall want to install KOffice. However this looks like the best lead so far, so I'm looking into it, but hope there will be something else.

Thanks.

[Snowhog]

Re: Need a replacement for Visio

There is also Dia

Dia is roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program 'Visio,' though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

It can load and save diagrams to a custom XML format (gzipped by default, to save space), can export diagrams to a number of formats, including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF and PNG, and can print diagrams (including ones that span multiple pages).