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New Free and Open Source Databases for Linux and Windows
I am getting tired of Headhunters passing me up because I don't have X Database experience. I've tried to download an evaluation cpy of IBM's DB2 but it keeps timing out on me.

What databases out there are free or open sourced that I can install on Windows 9X/2000/XP or Linux to test things out on and develop for?

So far that I can recall:

[link|http://www.mysql.org|MySQL]
mSQL
Postgrie
DB2 (Demo only 30 days)


Any others I should be aware of like that Inprise Interbase? Links? Thanks.

"Oy! Seats taken mate!" - "Brilliant!" on BBC America
New Re: Free and Open Source Databases for Linux and Windows
Interbase would be the first bet. Borland originally developed it closed source as a production database. Should have most of what anyone needs.

Postgres would be second. They seem to understand many of the business requirements.

MySQL is seriously lagged. From what I've seen, people working on it really don't seem to understand the importance of reliable transactions. Good fast database for data that isn't really important. They seem to have only recently picked up the concept of "commit changes to database *guaranteed* commit or rollback".
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
New Postgres problems
I visited the [link|http://Postgressql.org|Postgres SQL] web site and got redirected to the Canadian site, which when I clicked on the download redireted me to the Postgressql.org site which kicked me back to the Canadian site sans the download links. Grrr! i hate going in circles. Anyone got a Mirror site or a direct lnik to download Postgres?

"Oy! Seats taken mate!" - "Brilliant!" on BBC America
New I got this to work
[link|http://www.ca.postgresql.org/index.html|[link|http://www.ca.postgresql.org/index.html|http://www.ca.postg...g/index.html]]

Wade.

"All around me are nothing but fakes
Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"

New Sorry, bouncie bouncie
It keeps sending me back to the postgresql.org web site when I click on the ***ing download link. Grrrr! I'm going back to bed! I need the sleep.

"Oy! Seats taken mate!" - "Brilliant!" on BBC America
New Exactly! ... Well, not *quite*. :-)
The Bearded One:
Interbase would be the first bet. [...] Should have most of what anyone needs.
'Xackly.

It's a full-featured SQL-92 and partly SQL-96 (or was that -99?) - conforming RDBMS, with stored procedures and triggers and "generators" (Oracle: "Sequences"; M$ $QL: ~"autoincrement columns") and real honest-to-Ghu transactions -- in short, pretty much everything that "MySql" is not.

And in terms of bang-for-the-buck, it handily beats the pants off just about everything except, maybe, PostGreSQL.

I mean, when you look at those download sizes -- 1,800 Mb for Oracle, vs ~2.5 MB for the zipped binary-only version of IB (~13 MB unzipped for the version with source and full .PDF documentation, IIRC), you can't help but scream: "FUCKING BLOATWARE!!!" at the Oracle offering. Sure, it does more -- quite a bit more, I admit -- but a hundred and fifty TIMES more?!? I think not!!!

(How big is PostGreSQL...?)


No, not Fidel -- the other Bearded One:
Borland originally developed it closed source as a production database.
Well, no -- they got it in the bargain, when they bought Ashton-Tate. Anyone remember them...? "of dBase fame"? I recall, a couple years after the merger, when dBase was dying on the vine, somebody (on PC Mag as I recall; maybe Bill Machrone or Jim Seymour) speculated that they'd actually bought A-T for InterBase, not dBase...

Anyway -- Ashton-Tate didn't develop it either. They bought Groton Data Systems[*], which had been founded by the developer(s?) of InterBase, Jim Starkey (and his SO Ann Harrison?), after their erstwhile employer Digital Equipment decided to go with another system known as "Rdb" (for "Relational Data Base", I assume) as their RDBMS in stead. Wonder what became of it? Look around that Oracle site, and you'll find a product called "Oracle Rdb" somewhere...

Then a few years ago (something like the 1996 - 1998 time frame) Borland had decided to spin off IB so it was transferred to a separate daughter company, InterBase Inc... Then they changed their minds, pulled it back in, and said they were going to liquidate it by giving it away to a "New Company, Inc" and making the code Open Source... Then they partly changed their minds again and pulled it back in -- a Borland "Open" version is still available on SourceForge, but:

1) much of the IB developer and user community flocked to A) "communities" like the quickly-forked "'Real' Open Source" project, at [link|http://firebird.sourceforge.net/|[link|http://firebird.[**]sourceforge.net/|http://firebird.[**]sourceforge.net/]] and [link|http://interbase2000.org/|The Interbase Developer Initiative]; and B) to what would have become the "New Company, Inc" (and was for a while known as "InterBase, Inc") and is now called [link|http://www.ibphoenix.com/|IBPhoenix] (Phoenix -- "rising from the ashes", geddit?), led by -- none other than "ms InterBase", Ann Harrison! and

2) Borland just released a [link|http://www.borland.com/interbase/|version 6.5], most of the new bits of which (IIUC) are only available as paid-for closed-source from Borland.

So much for the history -- it wasn't Borland that "originally developed it closed source", but they did and still at least half-way do own it.



[*] Groton is a place in New England somewhere, prolly Machahachahoosetts, where Starkey and Harrison lived and worked back then. You can still see traces of it in InterBase's default "gds32.dll" system file name and "BlahBlah.gdb" database filename extension.

[**]: "Fire-Bird" = "Phoenix", geddit?
New Groton, Conneticut
Close to I-95 and Long Island Sound, across the river from New London, CT, and home to Electric Boat and Subase New London.

Electric Boat is the descendent of Holland Electric Boat, which built the first practical submarine, and is one of two yards (Newport News in Virginia is the other) still building US nuclear submarines. They built all the Trident submarines.

Subase New London is an attack submarine base (IIRC the USS Seawolf is based there) and is also home to the US Navy Submarine School.

The US Coast Guard Academy is close by. So is Mystic, CT, home to the Mystic Seaport, Mystic Marinelife Aquarium, and location of the file "Mystic Pizza".

It's a cute little area, but there's not much else around.

And, based on what Norm wants to do (brush up on DBA skills to improve his job skills), both Oracle and PostreSQL are better choices than IB.

Tony
Who lived in Groton while going through sub school
New Yah.. I dropped in there for breakfast
on my marathon I-95 drive from Boston to Miami {ugh}

Nothing going on that I could see. Sleeepy.



Ashton
hardly the final word on Groton.
New Now that potential Santa season is almost over...
I may be losing the beard. It was, in some ways, insurance against being deinstalled. Good (if temporary) money for Real Beard Santas, so I hear.
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."
-- Donald Knuth
New You might see if Oracle is still giving out free software
for joining the Oracle Developer Network.

Although I haven't had time to play with it, I did get some Linux software from Oracle from joining a while ago.

Good luck!

Tony
New Oracle freebies
Yes they do, I joined up and am downloading it now. The 8i Enterprise for Windows NT/2000 is about 600M. The 9i is three 600M download files. Yikes! For development only but it is a big monster download!

I'll try to get the Linux version after the NT/2000 version.

Thanks! After I install them and get them working, I'll try to brush up on my Oracle PL/SQL skills and Oracle DBA skills.

"Oy! Seats taken mate!" - "Brilliant!" on BBC America
New Get 9i
Much better, easier install on Linux.

PostgreSQL (if you can ever download it :-P -- actually, check your distro, you should be able to get the packages from them or from rpmfind.net) has the advantage over Interbase et al. in that it uses a subset of PL/SQL for its stored procedures.
Regards,

-scott anderson
New Yep, that's why I think he should look at Oracle/PostgreSQL
With Oracle 9i being the first priority.

Although I think IB should get a fair shot, it doesn't have much market or mind share. Norm is interested in learning stuff that employers will be interested....thus Oracle should be #1. And, given the similarities between Oracle and PostgreSQL, I think PostgreSQL should be the open source data base he tries to learn if he has any time after practicing with Oracle.

Tony
New This bandwidth is killing me
I just finished downloading 8i and now 9i is three CDs full of files? Yikes! I hope my ISP doesn't ding me for the bandwidth used to download them.

rpmfind.net doesn't seem to work, I also tried www.rpmfind.net, got a host not found error. Either my ISP is flakey or their host is down?

"Oy! Seats taken mate!" - "Brilliant!" on BBC America
New Got it!
I went to [link|http://www.rpmfind.org|[link|http://www.rpmfind.org|http://www.rpmfind.org]] and got it from there. I am not sure why the .net didn't work? Must be my DNS flaking out on me?

"Oy! Seats taken mate!" - "Brilliant!" on BBC America
     Free and Open Source Databases for Linux and Windows - (nking) - (14)
         Re: Free and Open Source Databases for Linux and Windows - (wharris2) - (7)
             Postgres problems - (nking) - (2)
                 I got this to work - (static) - (1)
                     Sorry, bouncie bouncie - (nking)
             Exactly! ... Well, not *quite*. :-) - (ThinlyVeiled) - (3)
                 Groton, Conneticut - (tonytib) - (1)
                     Yah.. I dropped in there for breakfast - (Ashton)
                 Now that potential Santa season is almost over... - (wharris2)
         You might see if Oracle is still giving out free software - (tonytib) - (5)
             Oracle freebies - (nking) - (4)
                 Get 9i - (admin) - (3)
                     Yep, that's why I think he should look at Oracle/PostgreSQL - (tonytib) - (2)
                         This bandwidth is killing me - (nking) - (1)
                             Got it! - (nking)

ASHTO...
boot: knoppix

Booting AshtoKnoppix kernel:
Attitude fault in sarcasm module at h07734, f000
Beneficence module missing
Closing hyperbole stack
Irreverence matrix CRC-error.
WMD military overlay timeout: colonel panic
unmount hda-0
unmount hda-1
hump hda-3
mov ax, bs 0011
call I [Exit]


[Exit]
lugubrious=0
snide=1
[cackle]=auto
start=LRPD
END
195 ms