Re: delivering database stand-alone

Joost Kremers wrote:
> hi all,
>
> i am planning to build a database (a dictionary in fact) that i will
> eventually want to distribute on a cd (or downloadable iso). what i would
> like to know is if this is technically possible with postgresql. and how
> exactly would it be done? would i have to make postgresql run off the cd,
> or should it first be installed to the hard disk? (the latter would be
> problematic on linux, given the many different distros and their different
> package management systems...) how would i deal with systems that already
> have a postgreql server or (more difficult perhaps) a different database
> server running?
>
> or should i not make use of postgresql (or any database server) at all for
> the cd? after all, the data in the database is static, users will not have
> to modify it, just look it up.
>
> thanks for any comments and suggestions.

PostgreSQL will not run on read-only medium easily.  If you vacuum full all
the tables, that will prevent table writes, but we write to pg_clog even
for select.

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