Monday, October 24, 2016

Salesforce Data Loader on Linux? Can it be?

I've been a Salesforce Admin and Developer for about 6 years, and throughout this entire time I've just used my Windows work computer.

In my past, though, I loved using Linux and missed that feeling of experimentation, messing with system-level settings, and freedom- not being tied to Microsoft's operating system. Some issues with my Windows installation recently made me extremely frustrated - enough so that I just said "Enough! I'm going back to Linux!"

So I backed up my computer, and decided to install Ubuntu - a very popular distribution of Linux.
After a few hours of setting things up 'just like I want' and challenges getting my company's email set up - I felt like I have a good working environment, and went back to my actual work.

One of the first things I needed to do was use Dataloader to update a large amount of records.
Oh oh.
What?
There is NO version of Data Loader for Linux?
What the hey, Salesforce?



So yes, apparently Linux is a much less used operating system across Salesforce users and administrators, and Salesforce seems to think it wasn't important enough to invest time in building a version of the extremely useful tool for Linux.

I turned to Google, and found that the is a version of the CLI (Command Line Interface) that works on Linux - but I really wanted my user interface. Long story short, after a LOT more time than I expected to have to spend searching, I found a blog post by a nice guy named @EgidioCaprino .

Edigio is a developer and an Arch Linux user (another distribution of Linux) and decided to adjust the program (written in Java) to work on Linux. He built a package and in the spirit of the open-source world put it on GitHub for the world to enjoy.

Edigio's blog has very simple 3-step instructions on how to download and setup Dataload to run on any Linux distribution - and you know what? IT WORKS!

So enough with my babbling. Here is the link to Edigio's blog:
http://egidiocaprino.it/salesforce-data-loader-for-ubuntu-and-debian/




5 comments :

  1. DUDE!

    I seriously can't thank you enough for finding this gem!! Never going back to Windows after this!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So glad you found this helpful - but all I did was Googling... thank Egidio for the actual work :)

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    2. That blog is closed can you provide those 3 steps.

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    3. Unfortunately - The download is not available in any other place.
      Have you tried reaching out to Egidio through Twitter? If so - keep in my that in past it took him a few days to respond to me.

      Delete
  2. I know, this is post is pretty old, but if anyone finds it, here's a solution: https://github.com/SoftCreatR/dataloader-for-linux

    Happy new year :)

    ReplyDelete