Re: PostgreSQL in mission-critical system

At 06:17 AM 7/13/2002, Curt Sampson wrote:
>You should probably go with whatever database you (or your DBA)
>know best.  If you don't know any, PostgreSQL is as good as any.

Actually, I'd say, if you don't know any, PostgreSQL is much better than most.

I've installed (or tried to install) these databases on Linux:

MySQL
PostgreSQL
DB2
Oracle 8i

I completely failed to get DB2 or Oracle up and running - the system
requirements, disk partitions, etc., required are nearly incomprehensible
and they don't give you any human-comprehensible documentation.

MySQL has a very complicated user/table/permissions system, but very few
tuning parameters, so it is very easy to set up. (All its other drawbacks
relative to PostgreSQL have already been discussed.)

PostgreSQL is relatively easy to set up (the hardest part is setting it up
for multiple users and remote access - but that takes only a little while
of reading the pg_hba.conf and the createuser command), but probably harder
to tune well.

So, as Curt says, if you've never run any database on Linux - do yourself a
favor and use PostgreSQL if you have any but the most simple requirements
(for which MySQL would probably suffice).

Also - PostgreSQL on Debian/Woody is super-simple to use:

$ apt-get install postgresql postgresql-dev postgresql-clients postgresql-doc
$ createdb mytest
$ psql mytest

and you're off and running.

Cheers,

Doug