Thread: [Windows] Feedback on PG?

Hello

    I'm looking for an open-source DBMS that runs on Linux and Windows.
In order to make an informed choice, I would like some feedback on
the Windows port of PostgreSQL, as compared to MySQL and Firebird (if
you know of yet other solutions, I'm also interested.)

Is the Windows port on par with the *nix version, and with those
other alternatives? Apart from the fact that, unlike MySQL,
PostgreSQL doesn't require buying a license when developping
commercial applications, are there technical reasons why I should
choose PostgreSQL instead of MySQL or Firebird?

Thank you for any feedback.

On Wed, 2009-05-20 at 09:32 +0200, Gilles wrote:
>         I'm looking for an open-source DBMS that runs on Linux and
> Windows.
> In order to make an informed choice, I would like some feedback on
> the Windows port of PostgreSQL, as compared to MySQL and Firebird (if
> you know of yet other solutions, I'm also interested.)
>
> Is the Windows port on par with the *nix version, and with those
> other alternatives? Apart from the fact that, unlike MySQL,
> PostgreSQL doesn't require buying a license when developping
> commercial applications, are there technical reasons why I should
> choose PostgreSQL instead of MySQL or Firebird?

We get this question a lot. Yes, there are many technical differences
between various open source products.

The list you've mentioned seems to have excluded non-SQL databases such
as BerkeleyDB, and local databases such as SQLite. Both of those are
more heavily deployed than the first 3 you mention. You need to think
about why you have excluded those and yet included projects like
Firebird. If your only selection criteria is "open source DBMS" then it
will be difficult to tell them apart.

I would suggest you to talk to the business and find out what the
requirements are. Also look through the feature list of PostgreSQL and
see if any of those things might be important to you.
http://www.postgresql.org/about/
http://www.postgresql.org/about/advantages
http://www.postgresql.org/about/awards

Good luck with your selection.

--
 Simon Riggs           www.2ndQuadrant.com
 PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support

Gilles wrote:
> Hello
>
>     I'm looking for an open-source DBMS that runs on Linux and Windows.
> In order to make an informed choice, I would like some feedback on the
> Windows port of PostgreSQL, as compared to MySQL and Firebird (if you
> know of yet other solutions, I'm also interested.)

You'll probably need to give some details of how you intend to use it.
One-off on large server hardware? Hundreds of copies deployed around the
world on XP machines 5 years old?

> Is the Windows port on par with the *nix version, and with those other
> alternatives?

It's feature-compatible. I'm not sure Windows would be the platform of
choice for most PG users out here (there are a lot of people who do, but
not because they thought Windows was the best platform for PG). If you
want to squeeze every last drop of performance from your database you'll
want a unix-based system.

The main Windows problems we see on the mailing lists all revolve around
(1) installation and (2) anti-virus. PostgreSQL runs as a "unprivileged"
user in unix terms, and given the complex permissions model on Windows
and the wide variety of setups on machines that's not always proved easy
to get right.

The second problem is with anti-virus scanners locking the database
files for a fraction of a second - that doesn't help the smooth running
of any system. Once the scanner is told to ignore PG / switched off the
problems go away, so it's easy enough to diagnose.

 > Apart from the fact that, unlike MySQL, PostgreSQL doesn't
> require buying a license when developping commercial applications, are
> there technical reasons why I should choose PostgreSQL instead of MySQL
> or Firebird?

PG has a long track-record of trying to get things correct first time
and then improve performance. MySQL has traditionally approached things
from the opposite end. We have excellent GIS support, a wide range of
procedural languages and custom type support. The community support on
these mailing lists is world-class and there are several independent
commercial companies with intimate knowledge of the internals should you
ever want paid support. User groups are based around the world, with
mailing lists in a variety of languages. You are joining a community
here rather than buying a product from one supplier.

I'm not sure MySQL does require a commercial licence. If you're
referring to the GPL'ed connection libraries then there are exceptions
for PHP etc and I'm not sure it applies if you connect via ODBC or some
other wrapper (but speak to a lawyer). MySQL's big win is it's
ubiquitous in the open-source web-developer world. It's easy to find
people who know it (and even easier to find people who only think they do).

Firebird is less well known than either PG or MySQL but is based on a
product that has a long track record. It is supposed to be quite good at
being embedded in part of another product.

--
   Richard Huxton
   Archonet Ltd

Richard Huxton wrote:

>> Is the Windows port on par with the *nix version, and with those other
>> alternatives?

> The main Windows problems we see on the mailing lists all revolve around
> (1) installation and (2) anti-virus. PostgreSQL runs as a "unprivileged"
> user in unix terms, and given the complex permissions model on Windows
> and the wide variety of setups on machines that's not always proved easy
> to get right.

I suspect a lot of that comes down to user/admin knowledge as much as
anything. The installer/uninstaller needs to do a lot more hand-holding
than it presently does to handle users who've done things like changed
the data directory permissions, tried reinstalling under a different
user account, tried to run Pg under the account it's being installed
with, etc.

That said, there are also a few bugs lurking that only affect the
Windows version. The "cannot reattach to shared memory" issues come up
here periodically and don't seem to have any good solution. I wouldn't
be too shocked if this was a hook dll / spyware / AV issue at the root
of it, though.

I've used Pg on my laptop at various points when it's been running
Windows, and found it stable and reliable for my purposes (app dev and
testing).

Note that you can run Pg on a UNIX/Linux server and connect Windows
clients to it, too. This is a _very_ common way of using Pg, and works
flawlessly.

> The second problem is with anti-virus scanners locking the database
> files for a fraction of a second - that doesn't help the smooth running
> of any system. Once the scanner is told to ignore PG / switched off the
> problems go away, so it's easy enough to diagnose.

Some antivirus scanners must be fully uninstalled, not just told to
ignore Pg. There can be a few reasons for this:

  - Buggy system call hooks or hook DLLs that cause some system calls
    to behave in ways they're not meant to, often subtly. These hooks
    are often not uninstalled when the AV tool is turned off, just set
    to do nothing, but they often still cause problems.

    Similarly, if the AV is told "ignore these files/processes" the
    hooks still activate, they just choose to do nothing. If the bugs
    affect the operation of the hook DLLs / system call replacements
    even when they're not actively scanning, you'll still have issues.

    ( I even have a *webcam* driver that installs a buggy hook DLL
      that breaks Pg, gcc, and some other software! It's not just AV. )

  - Telling it to ignore `postgres.exe' etc may not prevent it from
    scanning PostgreSQL's tempfiles, data files, etc.

  - Telling it to ignore the data directory and postgres executables
    may not be enough to stop it interfering with other parts of the
    system that Pg interacts with.

In short: Virus scanners are *E*V*I*L*. I've seen relatively few issues
with recent versions of a few, but most seem to be way more trouble than
they're worth unless you do only very simple things on your machine.

>> Apart from the fact that, unlike MySQL, PostgreSQL doesn't
>> require buying a license when developping commercial applications, are
>> there technical reasons why I should choose PostgreSQL instead of
>> MySQL or Firebird?

In addition to the list already presented, Pg tends to hold up well when
faced with complex, difficult queries and under highly concurrent
read/write loads. It has transactional DDL, which is something you get
so used to relying on that you'll go quietly nuts trying to manage
changes on DBs without it. It has rather good access control, which
combined with good procedural language support makes it possible to do a
lot of your business logic work in the DB.

If you just want a dumb data store, PostgreSQL is probably overkill. It
does have costs in terms of the need to tune it for optimal performance,
preferably run it as a service, dump & reload during upgrades, etc. It's
not an invisible, admin-free database, though with some work you can
make it seem that way to your app users.

It's certainly not as simple as, say, SQLite, and it can be slower for
simple queries too.

On the other hand, Pg can enforce very complex data integrity rules,
handle big and complicated queries, and otherwise hide lots of
complexity from the application - if you choose to use its facilities
well instead of treating it as a dumb data store.

If you're the kind of developer who thinks triggers and transactions are
unnecessary frills, PostgreSQL is not for you. If you can't imagine
using a database without fully transactional operation and strong data
integrity enforcement, Pg is much more likely to be your sort of thing.

--
Craig Ringer

At 10:20 20/05/2009, Richard Huxton wrote:
>You'll probably need to give some details of how you intend to use
>it. One-off on large server hardware? Hundreds of copies deployed
>around the world on XP machines 5 years old?

Sorry, forgot about this point: It's just for concurrent accesses
from a few Windows clients. Until now, SQLite was fine for my use,
but now that more than one user may be making changes to the DB, I
need something that supports this.

>The main Windows problems we see on the mailing lists all revolve
>around (1) installation and (2) anti-virus. PostgreSQL runs as a
>"unprivileged" user in unix terms, and given the complex permissions
>model on Windows and the wide variety of setups on machines that's
>not always proved easy to get right.

I see that "Windows compatibility is available via the Cygwin
framework. Native Windows compatibility is also available with
version 8.0 and above": At this point, is installing the server still
a headache?

>The second problem is with anti-virus scanners locking the database
>files for a fraction of a second - that doesn't help the smooth
>running of any system. Once the scanner is told to ignore PG /
>switched off the problems go away, so it's easy enough to diagnose.

Thanks for the tip.

At 10:29 20/05/2009, Simon Riggs wrote:
>We get this question a lot. Yes, there are many technical
>differences between various open source products.

Sorry about that. I should have dwelved deeper and read this before asking:


<http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Running_%26_Installing_PostgreSQL_On_Native_Windows>http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Running_%26_Installing_PostgreSQL_On_Native_Windows

Besides the availability on Windows/Linux and the license, another
item in my check-list is how to connect to it from Delphi.

Thank you.

Gilles wrote:

> I see that "Windows compatibility is available via the Cygwin framework.
> Native Windows compatibility is also available with version 8.0 and
> above": At this point, is installing the server still a headache?

That's hopelessly out of date, wherever it came from.

PostgreSQL 8.3 is a native Win32 application. It doesn't need or use
Cygwin or the like. It has a normal win32 installer, runs as a Windows
service, and uses normal Windows file/network/etc APIs.

--
Craig Ringer

At 10:58 20/05/2009, Craig Ringer wrote:
>I suspect a lot of that comes down to user/admin knowledge as much
>as anything. [...] That said, there are also a few bugs lurking that
>only affect the Windows version. [...] I've used Pg on my laptop at
>various points when it's been running Windows, and found it stable
>and reliable for my purposes (app dev and testing). [...] Some
>antivirus scanners must be fully uninstalled, not just told to
>ignore Pg [...] In short: Virus scanners are *E*V*I*L*. I've seen
>relatively few issues with recent versions of a few, but most seem
>to be way more trouble than they're worth unless you do only very
>simple things on your machine.

Thanks much for the feedback. If customers choose to install the DBMS
on a Windows server, I'll tell them that it's just not a good idea to
have an AV running on it, and find other ways to secure it (firewall,
permissions, etc.)

If some users have been using the native Win32 version of PG in
production, I'd like to hear how it runs in terms of stability and
performance. This DBMS is meant to be used in SOHO settings, meaning
it should be very easy to install, use, and kept up-to-date.

Gilles, 20.05.2009 09:32:
> Is the Windows port on par with the *nix version, and with those other
> alternatives? Apart from the fact that, unlike MySQL, PostgreSQL doesn't
> require buying a license when developping commercial applications, are
> there technical reasons why I should choose PostgreSQL instead of MySQL
> or Firebird?

The documentation for Postgres is far better than the one for Firebird. Due to licensing issues, the Firebird project
cannotpublish a full set of documentation that covers all versions. They have to rebuild the docs from scratch which is
happeningvery slowly. So when looking for specific feature you need to search several documentation sets which I find
veryunpleasant. 

I also have the impression that there is a lot more momentum to the Postgres project than to Firebird.

Thomas

On Wed, 20 May 2009 09:32:13 +0200
Gilles <codecomplete@free.fr> wrote:

> Hello
>
>     I'm looking for an open-source DBMS that runs on Linux and
> Windows. In order to make an informed choice, I would like some
> feedback on the Windows port of PostgreSQL, as compared to MySQL
> and Firebird (if you know of yet other solutions, I'm also
> interested.)

It was a while I didn't "seriously" touch Windows.
Recently I had to install PostgreSQL on XP.
This is a very superficial first impression.

I was surprised how polished the installation was.
On Windows the installer even comes with a couple of goodies more:
namely a tuning wizard and some debugging components.
Nothing that really make you miss the *nix environment... but still
a quite nice impressing experience.

I was even surprised to see the installer offer you a chance to
install Drupal.

> Is the Windows port on par with the *nix version, and with those
> other alternatives? Apart from the fact that, unlike MySQL,
> PostgreSQL doesn't require buying a license when developping
> commercial applications, are there technical reasons why I should
> choose PostgreSQL instead of MySQL or Firebird?

From a very naive POV I'd say MySQL is still an SQL interface to the
filesystem. PostgreSQL is a mature RDBMS.
On small projects where data aren't that valuable and the
application is nearly totally read-only or you're willing to reinvent
the wheel of concurrent access to your data I'd go with MySQL.
As C++ or python may be "boring/annoying" compared to VB or PHP,
PostgreSQL may be "boring/annoying" compared to MySQL. But as soon
as you reach some grade of complexity/value of your data you're
really going to appreciate what PostgreSQL can offer.

From a pure programming point of view, PostgreSQL is really much
more fun to deal with. It's not sloppy accepting everything you
throw at it... and regretting it later, it is much more standard
compliant, it warns you earlier about problems and try to give you
good hints on how to solve them, it let you use some more complex
SQL features (and more to come) it has support for full text search
and spatial/geographic data/indexes on a transactional engine, it
has a plethora of extension modules.
Functions, triggers and rules are much more mature than on MySQL.
schemas may really come handy simply as namespaces or as a tool to
manage grant.

I think you could connect from Delphi through ODBC, meybe even on
some .NET driver. I think ODBC should be more mature... but don't
trust me.
For "updating"... PostgreSQL is still not able to do "hot upgrades"
from major versions. You've to backup->restore.
On Debian... this happens auto-magically... I've no idea about what
the Windows installer can do when upgrading.
If you've availability constraint this could be a bit annoying. If
you've HA constraints you're going to have some kind of replication
solution that will somehow let you do "hot upgrades".
Anyway this shouldn't be your concern if you're dealing with a SOHO.

Coming from a web background but where transactions and some
"advanced" features are essential to survival I got the impression
that actually even for small SOHO applications even when server and
client are on the same box pg may be a very good choice.

--
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 6:49 AM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
<mail@webthatworks.it> wrote:
]
> I was surprised how polished the installation was.

Thanks :-)

> On Windows the installer even comes with a couple of goodies more:
> namely a tuning wizard and some debugging components.
> Nothing that really make you miss the *nix environment... but still
> a quite nice impressing experience.
>
> I was even surprised to see the installer offer you a chance to
> install Drupal.

Note that the tuning wizard and drupal installation are not included
in the main installer, but are examples of a number of pre-configured
packages you can download and install using the StackBuilder utilitiy
which PostgreSQL comes with. There are a bunch of other apps as well,
and all are designed to 'just work'.

> For "updating"... PostgreSQL is still not able to do "hot upgrades"
> from major versions. You've to backup->restore.
> On Debian... this happens auto-magically... I've no idea about what
> the Windows installer can do when upgrading.

Minor version upgrades with just update the current installation.
Major versions may be installed in parallel, and it's up to you to
dump/reload or use tools like pg_migrator.

Whilst I'm emailing - the thread earlier mentioned virus scanners as a
common source of problems (in fact, Craig gave a nice explanation of
why). The machines used to build the installers (which includes
regression testing etc) all run either Sophos AV, or AVG Free Edition,
neither of which I've ever had any problems with when working on
PostgreSQL.

--
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK:   http://www.enterprisedb.com

On 20/05/2009 11:49, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:
> I think you could connect from Delphi through ODBC, meybe even on
> some .NET driver. I think ODBC should be more mature... but don't
> trust me.

You can use ODBC and .NET (depending on which version of Delphi you
have), and there are also various third-party tools for connecting,
depending on how you want to access the data in the client. Here are a
couple (commercial):

http://www.vitavoom.com/products/pgedriver/
http://www.microolap.com/products/connectivity/postgresdac/

> Coming from a web background but where transactions and some
> "advanced" features are essential to survival I got the impression
> that actually even for small SOHO applications even when server and
> client are on the same box pg may be a very good choice.

I second this....it "just works", and the fact that the installer comes
with a silent-install option means that you can roll it into your own
installer for use in this sort of scenario.

Ray.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Raymond O'Donnell, Director of Music, Galway Cathedral, Ireland
rod@iol.ie
Galway Cathedral Recitals: http://www.galwaycathedral.org/recitals
------------------------------------------------------------------

On 20/05/2009 11:59, Dave Page wrote:

> Whilst I'm emailing - the thread earlier mentioned virus scanners as a
> common source of problems (in fact, Craig gave a nice explanation of
> why). The machines used to build the installers (which includes
> regression testing etc) all run either Sophos AV, or AVG Free Edition,
> neither of which I've ever had any problems with when working on
> PostgreSQL.

I'd add the free edition of Avast to this list; I use it on my
development laptop and have never had any problem with it fighting PG.

Ray.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Raymond O'Donnell, Director of Music, Galway Cathedral, Ireland
rod@iol.ie
Galway Cathedral Recitals: http://www.galwaycathedral.org/recitals
------------------------------------------------------------------

Raymond O'Donnell, 20.05.2009 12:59:
> I second this....it "just works", and the fact that the installer comes
> with a silent-install option means that you can roll it into your own
> installer for use in this sort of scenario.

I like the fact that there is a ZIP file that I can simply extract which gives me a basic installation
Running initdb to initialize the database and pg_ctl to register the service is extremely easy.
A customized installation could be done with a four line batch file :)

Thomas

On Wed, 20 May 2009 11:59:34 +0100
Raymond O'Donnell <rod@iol.ie> wrote:

> On 20/05/2009 11:49, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:
> > I think you could connect from Delphi through ODBC, meybe even on
> > some .NET driver. I think ODBC should be more mature... but don't
> > trust me.
>
> You can use ODBC and .NET (depending on which version of Delphi you

What is the status of the .NET driver?
Are my assumptions about ODBC vs. .NET valuable or where they just a
remaining of the past/some nightmare I just had?

Any appreciable difference between the Windows .NET driver and the
*nix one?

--
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it

On Wed, 20 May 2009 06:59:28 -0400
Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:

> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 6:49 AM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
> <mail@webthatworks.it> wrote:
> ]
> > I was surprised how polished the installation was.
>
> Thanks :-)

Beside the fact I can only thank for all the great work around
postgresql, is there a reason we can't have something similar on eg.
Debian that will let us have a tuning wizard and a debugger that
"just works" with an aptitude install?

oh and yeah... I know a "Tuning Wizard" is evil and will hide all
the true unleashed hidden wonderful power you can really squeeze out
of Postgresql and corrupt your soul... but still ;)

--
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 7:38 AM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
<mail@webthatworks.it> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 May 2009 06:59:28 -0400
> Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 6:49 AM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
>> <mail@webthatworks.it> wrote:
>> ]
>> > I was surprised how polished the installation was.
>>
>> Thanks :-)
>
> Beside the fact I can only thank for all the great work around
> postgresql, is there a reason we can't have something similar on eg.
> Debian that will let us have a tuning wizard and a debugger that
> "just works" with an aptitude install?

No, other than resources. We maintain close to 100 installers now,
just for the EnterpriseDB supplied packages. Producing
platform-specific builds of them as well as the one-click installers
would be a mammoth task.

> oh and yeah... I know a "Tuning Wizard" is evil and will hide all
> the true unleashed hidden wonderful power you can really squeeze out
> of Postgresql and corrupt your soul... but still ;)

It's pitched as a ''get you started" tool. We still expect you to have
to do some application specific work for optimal performance, but it
can get you a reasonable default config based on a few questions about
your workload, and examination of your system.

--
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK:   http://www.enterprisedb.com

On 20/05/2009 12:36, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:
> What is the status of the .NET driver?
> Are my assumptions about ODBC vs. .NET valuable or where they just a
> remaining of the past/some nightmare I just had?
>
> Any appreciable difference between the Windows .NET driver and the
> *nix one?

I'm afraid I can't answer any of those questions.... I've been using
dbExpress almost exclusively for my Delphi work, and I find it fast and
lightweight.

Ray.

------------------------------------------------------------------
Raymond O'Donnell, Director of Music, Galway Cathedral, Ireland
rod@iol.ie
Galway Cathedral Recitals: http://www.galwaycathedral.org/recitals
------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, 20 May 2009, Dave Page wrote:

> The machines used to build the installers (which includes regression
> testing etc) all run either Sophos AV, or AVG Free Edition, neither of
> which I've ever had any problems with when working on PostgreSQL.

I added this to a broken out section focusing on AV in the FAQ:


http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Running_%26_Installing_PostgreSQL_On_Native_Windows#What_Anti-Virus_software_is_compatible.3F

with a note referring to that in the install section above it where this
info used to live.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD

On Wed, 20 May 2009 07:46:02 -0400
Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:

> > Beside the fact I can only thank for all the great work around
> > postgresql, is there a reason we can't have something similar on
> > eg. Debian that will let us have a tuning wizard and a debugger
> > that "just works" with an aptitude install?

> No, other than resources. We maintain close to 100 installers now,
> just for the EnterpriseDB supplied packages. Producing
> platform-specific builds of them as well as the one-click
> installers would be a mammoth task.

My universe is Debian bound... so I even don't know if there is a
*nix version of the tuning wizard.
I'd consider it a quite useful tool even for "marketing" purposes on
Linux too.
Bad performance without tuning is a common thread here.
I really didn't have time to investigate about the debugger, I'd
expect that on Windows it "just works".
While many things on *nix just work, debugging pg functions on Linux
is not one of those.
As you may have guessed my definition of "just works" in not that
different from "aptitude install".

I still have to find an howto for installing edb in Debian.
Could it be packaged for Debian if there were resources?

> It's pitched as a ''get you started" tool. We still expect you to

Exactly.

--
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it

Gilles wrote:
> At 10:29 20/05/2009, Simon Riggs wrote:
>> We get this question a lot. Yes, there are many technical differences
>> between various open source products.
>
> Sorry about that. I should have dwelved deeper and read this before asking:
>
>
<http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Running_%26_Installing_PostgreSQL_On_Native_Windows>http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Running_%26_Installing_PostgreSQL_On_Native_Windows

>
>
> Besides the availability on Windows/Linux and the license, another item
> in my check-list is how to connect to it from Delphi.
>
> Thank you.
>

I use Delphi to connect to PG and it works great.  I have a simple db
object on top of the C API.  (no evil TDataset.. I hate TDataset)  My
query's are read-only, forward-only queries, just like god intended.

The C API is simple to use/understand and works just fine linked to
Delphi.  (You do have to link to the DLL however, you cant compile it
into the .exe, but that's not a problem for me)

I've not used PG on windows, my server runs Slackware!  (the client's
all  run windows, and locally they cache stuff in sqlite for use off
network.  sqlite and pg play very nice together.)

-Andy

(I sent this message four hours ago, but it hasn't appeared on the list.
I'll make a second try.)

On Wednesday 20. May 2009, Dave Page wrote:
>On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 7:38 AM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo

>> oh and yeah... I know a "Tuning Wizard" is evil and will hide all
>> the true unleashed hidden wonderful power you can really squeeze out
>> of Postgresql and corrupt your soul... but still ;)
>
>It's pitched as a ''get you started" tool. We still expect you to have
>to do some application specific work for optimal performance, but it
>can get you a reasonable default config based on a few questions about
>your workload, and examination of your system.

Would it be a big deal to write a bash script with roughly the same
functionality?
--
Leif Biberg Kristensen | Registered Linux User #338009
Me And My Database: http://solumslekt.org/blog/

Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:
> On Wed, 20 May 2009 11:59:34 +0100
> Raymond O'Donnell <rod@iol.ie> wrote:
>
>
>> On 20/05/2009 11:49, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:
>>
>>> I think you could connect from Delphi through ODBC, meybe even on
>>> some .NET driver. I think ODBC should be more mature... but don't
>>> trust me.
>>>
>> You can use ODBC and .NET (depending on which version of Delphi you
>>
>
> What is the status of the .NET driver?
> Are my assumptions about ODBC vs. .NET valuable or where they just a
> remaining of the past/some nightmare I just had?
>
> Any appreciable difference between the Windows .NET driver and the
> *nix one?
>
>
The .NET driver (npgsql) is mature and excellent - I am not sure how you
integrate it with Delphi but for Microsoft .NET environments it is
brilliant. The ease of programming in .NET would make me select it over
ODBC every time.

Howard Cole.

On Wednesday 20. May 2009, Dave Page wrote:
>On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 7:38 AM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo

>> oh and yeah... I know a "Tuning Wizard" is evil and will hide all
>> the true unleashed hidden wonderful power you can really squeeze out
>> of Postgresql and corrupt your soul... but still ;)
>
>It's pitched as a ''get you started" tool. We still expect you to have
>to do some application specific work for optimal performance, but it
>can get you a reasonable default config based on a few questions about
>your workload, and examination of your system.

Would it be a big deal to write a bash script with roughly the same
functionality?
--
Leif Biberg Kristensen | Registered Linux User #338009
Me And My Database: http://solumslekt.org/blog/

On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
<mail@webthatworks.it> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 May 2009 07:46:02 -0400
> Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:
>
>> > Beside the fact I can only thank for all the great work around
>> > postgresql, is there a reason we can't have something similar on
>> > eg. Debian that will let us have a tuning wizard and a debugger
>> > that "just works" with an aptitude install?
>
>> No, other than resources. We maintain close to 100 installers now,
>> just for the EnterpriseDB supplied packages. Producing
>> platform-specific builds of them as well as the one-click
>> installers would be a mammoth task.
>
> My universe is Debian bound... so I even don't know if there is a
> *nix version of the tuning wizard.
> I'd consider it a quite useful tool even for "marketing" purposes on
> Linux too.
> Bad performance without tuning is a common thread here.

There is a linux version.

> I really didn't have time to investigate about the debugger, I'd
> expect that on Windows it "just works".
> While many things on *nix just work, debugging pg functions on Linux
> is not one of those.
> As you may have guessed my definition of "just works" in not that
> different from "aptitude install".

The debugger will work pretty much out of the box on Linux exactly as
it does on Windows if you use the one-click installers.

> I still have to find an howto for installing edb in Debian.
> Could it be packaged for Debian if there were resources?

We use a universal installer for edb (by which I assume you mean
Postgres Plus Advanced Server). Our customers run such a wide range of
platforms that it's simply not practical for us to build and properly
QA distro-native packages for every possibility, especially the less
commonly used platforms like Debian (I know, don't shoot me, but we're
more likely to see RHEL or Suse Enterprise in production).

--
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK:   http://www.enterprisedb.com

On 2009-05-20, Gilles <codecomplete@free.fr> wrote:
> At 10:58 20/05/2009, Craig Ringer wrote:
>>I suspect a lot of that comes down to user/admin knowledge as much
>>as anything. [...] That said, there are also a few bugs lurking that
>>only affect the Windows version. [...] I've used Pg on my laptop at
>>various points when it's been running Windows, and found it stable
>>and reliable for my purposes (app dev and testing). [...] Some
>>antivirus scanners must be fully uninstalled, not just told to
>>ignore Pg [...] In short: Virus scanners are *E*V*I*L*. I've seen
>>relatively few issues with recent versions of a few, but most seem
>>to be way more trouble than they're worth unless you do only very
>>simple things on your machine.
>
> Thanks much for the feedback. If customers choose to install the DBMS
> on a Windows server, I'll tell them that it's just not a good idea to
> have an AV running on it, and find other ways to secure it (firewall,
> permissions, etc.)
>
> If some users have been using the native Win32 version of PG in
> production, I'd like to hear how it runs in terms of stability and
> performance. This DBMS is meant to be used in SOHO settings, meaning
> it should be very easy to install, use, and kept up-to-date.

our flagship product "Gymmaster" uses postgresql for the business logic
and integrity checks, all of the business logic, and even some of the
user interface is implemented in the database.

We have perhaps 80 clients 90% of them are using windows based
postgres, the remainder have linux servers, mainly because it's
easier to install our other server processes on them.

The only issue found to date is that postgres doesn't use the windows
Timezone data (I don't think windows has historical timezone data - so
It can't) as a result if the politicians decide to mess with the
daylight savings rules (last time they gave us 4 whole weeks notice)
you need to upgrade the TZ data for your clients, or else suffer time
related business logic being off.