Best database under FreeBSD: MySQL/PostGreSQL/Oracle 1

[HenryMonster]

Hi All

Please advise: what do you think is the best
relational database to run under FreeBSD:
MySQL or PostGreSQL or may be Oracle ?
(Worked with Oracle a lot and it's really great under
Sun or HP, but how stable is it under FreeBSD and how
expensive ?)

Thank you very much in advance.

 

[rycamor]

If you are familiar with Oracle, you will be disappointed in MySQL. PostgreSQL adheres MUCH closer to the true RDBMS model, having key constraints, triggers, stored procedures, views, transactions, subselects, etc...

MySQL is just now in the beta process of adding some of the above concepts to certain table types.

But, as some have researched, the problems with MySQL go deeper than that. MySQL's version of SQL is not really complete. For example, you can't do such a thing as a multi-table DELETE or UPDATE statement, or a true UNION query.

MySQL is good for mainly read-only databases where concurrency is not critical. It does perform quite fast under these circumstances, though. I might recommend MySQL for such projects as dynamic websites, but not for business-critical applications.


Oracle?

Well, in all the current marketing frenzy over "the Linux phenomenon", FreeBSD has been treated like a red-headed stepchild. By this I mean Oracle and the other commercial database vendors have rushed to show their "solidarity" and "support" for the Linux cause, porting their products over, but they all act as if FreeBSD doesn't even exist. Which shows that they really are just treating it as a marketing opportunity, rather than a chance to make their databases cross-platform. (I would argue that it is easier to port commercial Unix-based RDBMS's to FreeBSD than Linux, because FreeBSD has a lot more in common with the commercial Unix distributions)

You can, however, manage to run some of these databases quite well on FreeBSD, using FreeBSD's Linux-compatibility mode, and the performance is quite good, but installation can be a pain.

Too bad for commercial databases, but good for PostgreSQL. FreeBSD is one of the primary target platforms for PostgreSQL development, and it shows. PostgreSQL purrs like a kitten on FreeBSD. Download it (

http://www.postgreSQL.org),

and spend some time with it, and I think you will be sold. -------------------------------------------

"Calculus is just the meaningless manipulation of higher symbols"
                          -unknown F student