looking for db recommendation

[Craig White]

On Tue, 2009-03-31 at 09:57 -0700, mz wrote:
> I'm migrating from M$ WinXP to openSUSE 11.0. At the moment I'm looking 
> for a db for simple personal use.
> 
> I have a music collection db in M$ Access. There are about 1900 records 
> w/ six variables. The collection is mostly vinyl LPs (i.e., entered by 
> hand) with another 2000 LPs not yet in the db. If possible, I'd like 
> to do a simple import w/ minimal clean up to avoid re-entering the 
> existing records.
> 
> What are the recommendations for a db and how best to accomplish the 
> migration?
----
sqlite easy
mysql  less easy
postgresql even less easy

for added complexity, you get more reliability.

I'm not sure that this part of the equation is all that important since
it's not going to be a heavily used database
2000 rows, 6 columns, one table or even if there were a few more related
tables (artists perhaps), it doesn't exactly test the capabilities of
any db

You probably want to use middleware that abstracts the database so even
if you started with sqlite and wanted to switch, you could do that
without losing design/programming effort.

Middleware thoughts....

Someone who has used Access probably would want to start out with
OpenOffice.org Database program. My understanding is that the Windows
version can directly convert Access 'mdb' files but I wouldn't know
since I haven't ever done it. If you have queries and forms already done
in Access, you might want to try to convert it with OOo Database first
because you may find that the conversion is easy.

Beyond that, it sounds like an excellent way to get into lamp (Linux
Apache MySQL PHP). The thing I have always found is that the best way to
learn a technology is to have a mission.

My preference for middleware is Ruby on Rails (Lamp good, RoR better).

Either the lamp or RoR are considerably more work than OpenOffice.org
Database so it all depends upon your drive to learn technology with
capabilities beyond your immediate task on hand. Both PHP and RoR
abstract the database sufficiently so that you could use any backend
database you choose.

Craig


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