A couple of years ago Microsoft announced SQL Server for Linux. Time to check it out for dev purposes.

It is technically possible to install it on Ubuntu 18 from a Microsoft PPA. However, it is not recommended. On my computer it turned out to be a memory hog and a CPU burner. It was unusable.

Luckily, it is suitable for Ubuntu 16 and there is a Docker image available. It installs with

docker run -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'SA_PASSWORD=pw' -p 1433:1433 -d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2017-CU8-ubuntu

I had some SQL dumps to import which was possible with

docker cp sql CONTAINER-ID:/sql
docker exec -it CONTAINER-ID /opt/mssql-tools/bin/sqlcmd -S localhost -U sa -P pw -i sql/FILENAME.sql

Last but not least the Azure Data Studio comes free with VS Code look and feel. It's similar to MySQL Workbench.

I must say, I'm impressed. This was extremely easy to set up and works perfectly fine for development. No virtual machine needed anymore.