On Tue, 19 Jan 1999, John Cusick wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Jan 1999, Karl F. Larsen wrote:
> > I'm wondering if ANYONE has used the posgress data base? It comes
> > already loaded on Red Hat 5.2 and I printed the large book "PostgrSQL
> > User's Guide" by Thomas Lockhart. It is exactly useless to me!
>
> Karl,
>
> Yes, I use it daily for a small relational db at work where
> I set it up with approx 123,000 entries in a simple table with
> around 12 different views. It's fast and relatively powerful,
> especially considering the cost :-)
That sounds interesting and useful. As with all the stuff we get
free with Linux, it is free but also it's great software.
> >
> > I found there is a posgres login and so I can su - postgres and I
> > will be in that login. I did a "createdb mydb" and it worked. Then I used
> > SQL and without any explanation.
> >
> > What is a query?
>
> The sql tutorial mentioned in another reply is a good starting point.
> A popular book (and a good one - which explains it's popularity) is
> "The Practical SQL Handbook Using Structured Query Language" by
> Bowman, Emerson, Darnovsky - Addison Wesley Developers Press.
I will bite the bullet and order this from Walden. I'm retired and
living on a nice annuity from a Government job but isn't as large as the
salary.
>
> It is an excellent intro to SQL with very good examples and a CD with
> a complete database that needs minor changes to be entered into PostgreSQL
> and that exercise alone will teach you a great deal about SQL and
> PostgreSQL
Opps! Where will I learn how to make these minor changes? Can I
e-mail you for help and get an answer?
>
> >
> > I am just lost. Is there a REAL Postgres User's Manual? Should I
> > quit trying to use it because I am so stupid? The postgres-HOWTO is even
> > MORE confusing bringing in perl and other things. I just want to put in
> > names and telephone numbers.
>
> For names and telephone numbers it's overkill to say the least, but for
> other big databases it's as good as any. It's very much text-based,
> i.e., not MS Access, although there are some simple graphic interfaces
> available that may be used once the database is built... by hand... at
> a keyboard.
Yes it seems where I am it is a text based interface geared to
manual entry of data into mydb. There is a laundry list of \x controls
which I haven't figured out how to print...yet. There is some way to enter
a file, but nothing to say what the file needs to look like.
If you have all the docs that came with it there is in the
> documentation a very simple tutorial about entering weather info into
> a small db. It, like a lot of open source docs is not designed to teach
> you about relational databases in general and how to set one up and
> then use it. The docs explain PostgreSQL relative to relational database
> systems and assume you know a lot already.
In Red Hat I don't find that weather info stuff. But when I loaded
it in my old slackware load it was there but I could not get it to run.
It's clear the input to postgres is designed to be multiuser with
permissions given for data base work to other users by the boss. This is
nice but overkill in my case since the user and boss are the same.
>
> Buy the book above and you'll be happy. And remember, db administrators
> don't make $50,000 to $100,000 a year for nothing :-) It can become a
> little complicated.
In our Linux User Group a member was sent to school for a month to
Orical and learned a lot about their system. It seems you can get Orical
for Linux for free now. A small learning tool that takes 190 Mbytes on
your hard drive. Tom has it and he is fast becoming a db admin guy at
work.
Thanks John for your time and I will act to buy the book and try
to load the cd data base to postgeSQL. I see a writing opportunity here if
I ever learn how it works. And it is more than I need now for sure. But in
the future it will be exactly what I want.
>
> John Cusick
> KB6FST
>
>
Best wishes
- Karl F. Larsen, 3310 East Street, Las Cruces,NM (505) 524-3303 -
