Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
From: wpp@lise.physik.tu-berlin.de (Kai Petzke)
Subject: ANNOUNCE: Postgres port to Linux
Message-ID: <1993May11.082356.17699@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 08:23:56 GMT
Approved: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu (Lars Wirzenius)

The theme "Postgres" was discussed more than once on comp.os.linux.
The last article is only a few days ago. Now I'm proud to announce
the release of a Postgres Port to Linux.

It's four months ago, that I posted to c.o.l, that I will try the
port. It wasn't easy, but finally, I got Postgres to play all the
demos supplied with the sources. However, I did not test the
Postgres file system (does Linux at all need more file systems?)

Postgres is a relational database management system of the
supreme class. You should be able to run it with 4 MB RAM plus
some swap (unverified by me, please tell me, if I was wrong).
You need 7 MB Harddisk space for all the demos, the complete
documentation and the binaries.

In order to run Postgres, you need the IPC package compiled into
your kernel. Please refer to the postgres.README for details.
It contains much more useful information, too, so don't forget
to get it with postgres.

Postgres is supplied both source and binary. I have uploaded it
to the linux incoming directories of:
tsx-11.mit.edu
ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de

You will have to wait, until the local sysops process these files.
At least at tsx-11.mit.edu, the /incoming directory is not readable
by the "world".

Excerpts from the postgres.README:

Q: Which packages do I need?
----------------------------
postgres4.0.1a.doc.tar.z:   documentation, get it.
postgres4.0.1a.demo.tar.z:  demos, get them.
postgres4.0.1a.bin.tar.z:   binaries.
postgres4.0.1a.libpq.tar.z: libraries for application development.
postgres4.0.1a.src.tar.z:   The source code, of course.

You need the libpq package, if you want to access the database
from C code. It contains all global header files, as well as the
static libpq.a library. You don't need this package, if you get
the source.

Version summary
---------------
Postgres:	4.0.1
This port:	0.1
Linux Kernel:	0.99.7 or higher (for IPCDELTA)
IPC:		Delta
Shared Libs:	4.3.3

Q: What is Postgres?
--------------------
Postgres is a relational database management system. It has many
of new ideas inplemented, among them are:

- dynamic loading of datatypes and functions into the database
  (for example, you could define complex numbers as datatypes,
  provide all the function for complex arithmetics, and then
  retrieve all records, where the absolute value of the exponent
  of one field is bigger than a given value ...).

- A transaction level rule system (say you got two relations
  (= database tables), one containing the accounts with the
  totals, one with the bookings. You could then write a rule,
  that always updates the totals, when a new booking is inserted).

- A transparent history system, so you can query the state of
  the database at any time in the past (unless you use the
  vacuum cleaner, which slurps up all the outdated stuff ...).

- Support for Write Once, Read Multiple (WORM) storage devices.

- Many, many others ...

Q: Space requirements?
----------------------
Binaries:	2 MB HD Space + Database space
		4 MB RAM + some swap, if nothing else is running.
		(maybe more, I have 8 MB and did not test with 4)

Docs:		a) troff source:    2 MB HD
		b) postscript dump: 2 MB HD

Excerpts from the postgres.FAQ:
-------------------------------
Q.  What is the connection between Postgres and Ingres?

A.  There is none, aside from Prof. Stonebraker.  There is no compatibility
    between the two software packages, and the research projects have
    differing objectives.  We do not support University Ingres at all;
    questions about it should be sent to the USENET group "comp.databases".

Q.  What is the Postgres query language?

A.  Postquel, which is an incompatible superset of Quel.

Q.  What about SQL support?

A.  We do not support SQL at this time.

Q.  What does Postgres run on?

Q.  What is the status of the Postgres implementation?

A.  It is not up to commercial levels of reliability.  I would not want
    _my_ payroll records in it :-)  However, it is quite adaquate for
    managing scientific and experimental datasets and as an instructional
    system.  Its speed on applications which stress transaction processing
    is not particularly good, but it is within about 50% of commercial systems
    on the more "report-oriented" Wisconsin benchmark, and is twice as fast
    as University Ingres on the Wisconsin.

Bugs:
-----
The Postgres V4.0.1 was only a bug fix release relative to 4.0,
so don't believe, you will have a robust database system with this
version of Postgres. Also note, that this port is an ALPHA release.
However, there are no bugs known to me, apart those mentioned in
doc/release.4.0.1. I tried my best to make this port clean, but if
you find bugs, please e-mail to:

Kai Petzke, wpp@marie.physik.tu-berlin.de

Questions, Problems:
--------------------
Feel free to ask, but please read this readme, the Linux' FAQs
and postgres-setup.me before you bomb me with e-mail. Please be
patient, I read e-mail two or three times a week only.

Future Plans:
-------------
1) Make this port stable.
2) Port picasso, the graphical front-end under X.
3) Upgrade to the newer postgres release 4.1.

Have fun!
