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Thread: Open Source Database

  1. #1
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    Open Source Database

    What is a good open source database software?

  2. #2
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    Re: Open Source Database

    Hi, wolfabc999. Welcome to the forum.

    Two words, MySQL and PostgreSQL.
    Despite their different histories, engines, and tools, no clear differentiation distinguishes either PostgreSQL or MySQL for all uses.
    Many favor PostgreSQL because it is so reliable and it is assumed to be a more densely featured database system often described as an open-source version of Oracle.
    MySQL on the other hand is more flexible, faster and has more options for being tailored for different workloads, but is the less full-featured of the two.
    Last edited by slickymaster; May 7th, 2013 at 05:11 PM.

  3. #3
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    Re: Open Source Database

    I have been using PostgreSQL for over a decade now and would never consider switching to MySQL. Postgres is designed to compete with Oracle and MS-SQL in the "enterprise" market, but it is no harder to manage than MySQL. (In fact in areas like user management and access control I find PostgreSQL much easier to manage than MySQL.) PostgreSQL also adheres firmly to ISO standards for SQL, while MySQL has some non-portable features. I also don't trust Oracle, now the owner of MySQL. I prefer to use a product built entirely by open-source coders. There is an open fork of MySQL called MariaDB, but why bother dealing with all that when PostgreSQL is free, powerful, and well-supported?

    I've also never really seen the speed question arise in production. I've written quite a number of websites with PostgreSQL as the backend and never thought it was slow. Performance depends a lot more on database design and, especially, proper indexing. A poorly indexed database is going to be slow on any platform. A well-designed database will run just fine on PostgreSQL.
    Last edited by SeijiSensei; May 7th, 2013 at 05:37 PM.
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  4. #4
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    Depends on the task

    It depends on what you want to use the database for. For larger, more complex activities MySQL (or its replacement MariaDB) or Postgresql will do fine. For smaller tasks Sqllite or, if you are working with just key pairs, even BerkelyDB.

    There are also MongoDB, CouchDB, GT.M and many others for other tasks. It's worth reading up on each of them a little.

    What do you plan to do with the database?

  5. #5
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    Re: Open Source Database

    I have a large supply of books and I want to create an access catalog.

  6. #6
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    Re: Open Source Database

    Quote Originally Posted by wolfabc999 View Post
    I have a large supply of books and I want to create an access catalog.
    For buildling a database of your books, I'd recommend your taking a look at the software available from Readerware.com.

    Its chief potential virtue for you is that it's a sophisticated database-management system that already incorporates features whose usefulness you could easily overlook in designing your own book database system. Furthermore, it lets you enter data by scanning barcodes or keyboarding in ISBNs, which leads to an online search of sources that you have selected, e.g., the Library of Congress, and/or Amazon.com, and/or Barnes & Noble, and/or foreign national libraries. Adding books to your database this way is FAR easier than keyboarding in all the data you want from a book in your collection.

    It's not free but it's inexpensive, and there are versions not only for Linux but also for Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac OS-X, and Windows. I've used it, and found it quite capable. Readerware offers similar database-management systems for music and for videos.

  7. #7
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    Re: Open Source Database

    go with mysql

  8. #8
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    Re: Open Source Database

    MariaDB is the brainchild of the man who originally developed and sold MySQL to Sun, who were themselves bought by Oracle from some rough-looking men with foreign accents in a dodgy part of town, on a dark night in winter, many years ago. They were smoking, wore leather jackets and hadn't shaved and it was raining heavily, etc. etc.

    MariaDB is getting more and more use in Linux distributions and I believe it will be the default MySQL (with which it is 97%-98% compatible) in Fedora, Gentoo and openSUSE and is already the default in Mageia.

    Not sure if there are compatibility issues involved in migrating a site developed with a MariaDB database to a hosted MySQL db. Perhaps someone else here who knows more about this can say.

    You might also want to check out their licenses. Open source != GPL.
    Last edited by iamkuriouspurpleoranj; May 9th, 2013 at 05:52 AM.

  9. #9
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    Re: Open Source Database

    Hold on, hold on. If it's just for something like Access, you'll get a lot out of LibreOffice Base.

  10. #10
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    Re: Open Source Database

    Quote Originally Posted by wolfabc999 View Post
    I have a large supply of books and I want to create an access catalog.
    LibreOffice Base or OpenOffice Base would be your answer but I would not recommend them for projects needing a DB of 2 GB or more. I would rather use a more proven DB engine like MySQL, Postgresql or MariaDB and then eventually use either LibreOffice Base or OpenOffice Base as a GUI front-end.

    Theoretically it's possible to increase both LibreOffice Base or OpenOffice Base size limit of the .data file from 2GB to 8GB, by setting the hsqldb.cache_file_scale property, which by default is 1 (equivalent to a 2 GB .data file size) to 8, but personally I've never work with these applications so I cannot ensure you how reliable is that. More about this possibility here.

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