Linux Stand Alone Database?

[John]

Brett Kirksey wrote:
> On Sunday 10 October 2004 at 11:37+0800, John wrote:
> 
> 
>>The use of an external DB engine is a good thing. So long as
>>the software writer pays attention, the application is
>>pretty-well automatically multiuser.
>>
>>It also meas that someone who can tell the difference between
>>a fast file manager (mySQL) and a relational DBMS such as
>>Postgresql, DB2 etc can choose to use something that
>>understands transactions, relational integrity, foreign keys
>>and maybe even money.
> 
> 
> As I said in my original post:
> 
>     "I know all the pluses and minuses of FileMaker, and that's not
>     the issue."
>     
> But I knew some person wouldn't be able to resist the "but
> there's a better way" comment. My faith in the passionate
> beliefs of Linux users isn't dashed. :-)


I've not seen or used filemaker; from reviews I've seen I gather it's 
more-or-less a modern dBase II.

Looking for something like that on Linux might prove fruitless: if I 
were to embark on writing such an application, I'd likely choose to use 
an established well-regarded backend because that would meam less 
coding, less debugging and fewer bugs.

If you look for inherently single-user applications you may well miss 
out on something that would provide a solution that would satisfy your 
wants even better than filemaker.


I know there is a GUI frontend to postgresql: how it compares to 
filemaker I've no idea.

I've also seen a howto in interfacing OOo to one of the SQL packages, I 
don't remember whether it was for mySQL or postgresql. How it compares 
to filemaker I've no idea.


Don't write off something that uses a proper RDBMS or even a fast file 
manager as a backend. It's not as if you will necessarily have to fork 
out another truckload of money.