In my quest to have a development machine that uses Linux I have found one more tool that will be very helpful.  Enter SQuirreL SQL, a GUI tool that allows you to interact with SQL Server with something other than Enterprise manager by using Java's JDBC ODBC bridge.

While I'll probably be figuring out how to connect through Linux when I get that going, the first challenge was to give it a test drive through Windows.  I downloaded the client version, got MS's JDBC driver, and then opened up SQuirreL.  Hmmm, what do I do now?  I have a "Drivers" and "Alias" window...  Dur....

In the "Drivers" window only one driver came up with a checkmark, the JDBC driver.  Yahoo for that.  I then played around with the Alias window and figured out this was the window I would need to work with to get a connection to SQL Server.  I'm no connection string nut, so I had no idea how to proceed.  I put in jdbc:microsoft:sqlserver://localhost:1433, and got a bunch of errors, then tried a bunch of different mish mashed versions of the previous to no avail.  (A "Test Connection" button would be really nice to implement here - I basically knew I was screwing up when I got StackTrace errors.)

Then I thought to create a DSN through my Administrative Tools->Data Sources->ODBC.  I created a new user DSN using the "SQL Server" driver.  I specified my username and password information and then created it with the name: myJdbcThingy. The DSN creator wizard deal actually has a "Test Connection" towards the end of it's setup, so with a "Test Successful" I'm feeling pretty confident.

Back in SQuirreL, I put in jdbc:odbc:myJdbcThingy and re-inserted the username and password info (just to be safe [er redundant?]) and then closed the config window with no errors!  I then just double clicked on my (assumed) working alias, and it brought up a screen with an objects tab that contained my databases, the tables, view, and sproc's.  Now to just find out how to manipulate them...