I need advice on choosing a free version of a "Pick Operating System"
DBMS for a personal project on a home computer.

The software needs to only accomodate one user. So the different free
versions would seem to be OK.

I am trying to decide which one of the different potential candidate
packages would best suit my needs.

I have written Data-Basic on a Microdata Reality. (I wish I was that
young again.)

I have several home computers which I might choose to write and compile
code on. I have a 2001 vintage P4, 1.5 Ghz. 756 RAM for which I have
Windows 98 SE and whatever Linux I can scrounge up. (Right now that is
Puppy Linux.) I am working on getting Open SUSE and maybe White Box
Linux (A free version of Red Hat 4..). I also have 300 Mghz Celeron,
160 MB of RAM. A 400 Mghz Pentium MMX, 160 MB RAM with a faster
graphics card.

I can not afford to purchase Windows XP.

I have looked at packages like Maverick, Jbase, OpenQM. I have not
yet gotten any of these packages to install yet. I notice Maverick
requires other components besides JAVA. If you recommend Maverick.
Please recommend which Compiler and DBMS to go with it? I have only a
little experience with Linux and so installing anything is a trial.

I had thought I could use one of the slower machines to write and
compile code on. I am not sure that any of my computers can happily
carry the weight of a heavier Linux and a compiler.

I thought I would ask someone who has experience before I spend hours
trying to install a one of the versions of Pick OS and learn it.

Thank you for whatever advice you can give.

You might want to check out IBM's web site, under U2 Software. Last I
heard they are allowing users to download a PE version of UniData and
UniVerse.

Hope this helps and good luck!

-- Grant

"purple_ghost" <purple_ghost (AT) utahweb (DOT) com> wrote

I would go with OpenQM. It has such a small footprint, it should run
ok on one of your machines. I am pretty sure that their website says
that it will run under Windows 98. There is also an open source Linux
version of it.

When you say that you haven't yet gotten any to install, does that mean
that you have tried to install OpenQM and it failed?

In fact. I was looking around at options and had downloaded OpenQM for
Linux and Windows 98. Recently I have been working more in Linux than
Windows 98. I found my woeful lack of knowledge, experience in Linux
left me wondering how to install OpenQM to Puppy Linux. I was a bit
concerned that the binary might not work with the later Linux kernel.
While the source for OpenQM is there, I have never compiled anything to
stick onto Puppy Linux. As some of you may know. The Linux install of
OpenQM is an html file with a header. A header that I do not know how
to use.

I felt I should look at another distro of Linux. A version of Linux
that is more 'state of the art' rather than Windows 98. I may need
more hard drives than Windows 98 allows. I notice that OpenQM (free
version) restricts the entire Data Base size to half a meg. What I am
doing is building some tables of numbers. I have not computed how
much space I will need. I looked at D3. Which has a version which
links up with some version of Red Hat. I had also noticed Multi-Value
System which would link up with either SUSE or Red Hat.


Then, suddenly, I had a priority project come up that caused me to
mostly delay working on this for two weeks.

I sent an email to Novell (who own SUSE) and one to Red Hat asking, as
I am a disabled person (translate: very poor) if they could cut me a
deal on their products. Novell quickly said that their Open SUSE was
exactly the same as their commercial product and was free for personal
use. As I have dial up, I asked a friend to ask a friend to provide
me the ISOs' for SUSE. I might get those this weekend (8-19-2006).
Red Hat said that they offered a deal where I could pay $178.00 or
something like it for a year subscription to Red Hat Version xxxxx.
(I do not remember which version.)

Since then I have found that one Red Hat version I might use may be in
the public sector. Although I still have a problem if I must download
it, or pay for the CDs'. Then I found White Box Linux, a free ware
version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I spent yesterday morning at the
downtown public library trying to download the first ISO of maybe six
onto a 1 GB USB key. The software setup at the public library does not
allow me to do a download as I tried. Although it took an hour and
half before I found out the download attempt had failed. All was not
lost. I did borrow a VHF of, "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" with
Kiefer Sutherland as a public health officer in San Francisco.

The techie interface person at the downtown library suggested that I
try the download at the University of Utah Library, as they are more
relaxed in what they allow to happen on their computers.

I think it possible that the check which D3 will do on startup may not
allow a Red Hat clone to be used with their product. I am not sure I
can get a free copy of the right version of D3.

Linux always seems to come with extra aggravation in doing things which
I feel should be simple. I guess if I had more experience. Doing
those things would be simple.

This morning I switched back to Windows 98 and installed OpenQM. I
got as far as it asked for the account name (that is an MS-DOS window).
Even I must read the documentation. I should spend some hours
reading the documentation.

First I should get my priorities straight. I need to spend some hours
backing up some things on my hard drive.

As going to the University may be thing that I must do multiple times.
Perhaps I should start doing a daily trip up there for a few days. I
might get White Box Linux and the entire 14 CDs' of Debian before the
students come back.

I have not looked at the possible options that you guys have suggested.
I intend to try. Thanks for the info. I intend to keep reading
this for a few more days.

Simply download the self-extracting archive and run it.

Actually, it is just a plain executable file. The settings of your
browser appear to be saying that it must be HTML because it has no
suffix.

No. It restricts individual files to half a megabyte. The "personal
version" is strictly for educational purposes and not for production
use. This limit effectively prevents it being used for anything
terribly useful.

Work through the opening steps of the Tutorial Guide. This clearly
explains the concept of account names and what to enter at this prompt
on a new installation.


Martin Phillips, Ladybridge Systems

G'day Martin,

Just a suggestion. Why not make the grand gesture and offer this poor
sucker a free single-user commercial license? And ship it with a copy of
Ubuntu Linux so he doesn't have to run back and forth to the university?

It won't hurt you at all, because he's not about to buy a copy. Hell, he
can't even afford Linux or broadband. But it will make you look good in
the eyes of cdp. Even if he is a Mormon. ;^)

Luke

None wrote:

purple_ghost wrote:
Hi,

I have been reading this thread and was not sure wheather this was a
genuine post or something other, but it appears to be genuine.

I cannot help you with a copy of XP for obvious reasons, but if you are
interested I can help
with the following:

I can post you a copy of Redhat WS 4, update 2, plus a copy of IBM
UniVerse Personal
edition, including the client and documentation CD's.

I will also include my own installation notes for UniVerse, so once you
get Redhat installed,
getting UniVerse installed should be straight forward.

I would be posting this stuff from Australia, so would take about a
week to get to you.

If this will help, send me an e-mail off list to
barry<<dot>>graetz<<at>>optusnet<<dot>>com<<dot>>a u
and I will get the the stuff into the post for you.

Regards, Barry

If you're not using MV for commercial purposes and you don't need to
support any particular clients or environment then for your situation
I recommend OpenQM over CentOS or maybe Debian.

Forget about D3, it's not free for developers or personal use. They
supposedly do provide free copies for educational institutions but
that remains to be proved.

jBASE, Unidata, and Universe have limited license versions of complex
commercial products - the learning curves may be too steep for more
personal use. I think these are ideal for a commercial site as a test
environment, a developer who's writing products for sale, or someone
who's motivated to work with them at home because they have MV at
work.

As I understand it, OpenQM is intended to serve as an open source
database, along the lines of MySQL. They want to open it up to people
who have neer seen MV. If you're just looking for a database, and you
have a bent toward MV, then this is ideal. If you want a more
"standardized" database and MV is less important, then you may want
MySQL.

About the OS, WhiteBox and CentOS are both RH clones with free
support. I've used WhiteBox Linux and while it's a noble effort I
don't think there are enough developers (one?), so support is
questionable. I use CentOS now. There are a lot of developers and
there is a long-term excellent track record of support. There is
often a question of whether some RPM will work with WBL or CentOS.
The answer is usually yes but sometimes the answer is to build from
source just in case, so you need to develop som skills in this area.
I'm told by some of our colleagues here that Debian is a better breed
of Linux, and it works with OpenQM. You could use Fedora too, but it
doesn't sound like you're ready for it. OpenBSD is another very
popular OS alternative. I don't know if OpenQM works with SuSE.

Anyway, I could be way wrong, but that's my reasoning based on what
you've told us - it's worth every penny you spent on it.

HTH

purple_ghost wrote:
I found my woeful lack of knowledge, experience in Linux
openqm requires gcc, puppy does not have this (i dont think any of the
'live' distros have it, by default). if you loaded puppy to your hard
drive, you can download gcc from the puppy repository of add on progs
and it may work then.

avoid this person from now on.

***
maverick only requires the java runtime to program in maverick-basic.
the other components are only required if you are tinkering with
maverick itself. maverick will not run on the 'windows' jre, you would
have to download a 'real' jre. BUT maverick is a work in progress,
while it works, you may get frustrated.

that said...

openqm will be your best bet. its groovy

go back to the library and check out 'linux for dummies', (this is what
the book is called) it comes with red hat 8, i ran the earlier versions
of openqm on rh8 for quite some time, i know of no reason why the
newest version of openqm wouldnt run on it still. (chime in if you know
of a reason.)
its fairly lightweight, compared to the others mentioned, easy to
install, etc. ( i ran it on a really crappy p2 with 128 m of ram)

if you cant find it at the library, go to your nearest "used and/or
obsolete bookstore" and buy it, or something like it, mine cost $5.

you could try one of the latest linux mags at barnes & noble. less than
$20 will get you the latest cool distro, (their moving to dvd's
tho...).

if this doesnt work, email me your address, i have stacks of distros,
i'll give 'em away, my wife will be ecstatic.

- tom h

purple_ghost wrote:
I found my woeful lack of knowledge, experience in Linux
openqm requires gcc, puppy does not have this (i dont think any of the
'live' distros have it, by default). if you loaded puppy to your hard
drive, you can download gcc from the puppy repository of add on progs
and it may work then.

avoid this person from now on.

***
maverick only requires the java runtime to program in maverick-basic.
the other components are only required if you are tinkering with
maverick itself. maverick will not run on the 'windows' jre, you would
have to download a 'real' jre. BUT maverick is a work in progress,
while it works, you may get frustrated.

that said...

openqm will be your best bet. its groovy

go back to the library and check out 'linux for dummies', (this is what
the book is called) it comes with red hat 8, i ran the earlier versions
of openqm on rh8 for quite some time, i know of no reason why the
newest version of openqm wouldnt run on it still. (chime in if you know
of a reason.)
its fairly lightweight, compared to the others mentioned, easy to
install, etc. ( i ran it on a really crappy p2 with 128 m of ram)

if you cant find it at the library, go to your nearest "used and/or
obsolete bookstore" and buy it, or something like it, mine cost $5.

you could try one of the latest linux mags at barnes & noble. less than
$20 will get you the latest cool distro, (their moving to dvd's
tho...).

if this doesnt work, email me your address, i have stacks of distros,
i'll give 'em away, my wife will be ecstatic.

- tom h