Too bad you're using MySQL instead of PostgreSQL, at least according to this poster a couple of weeks ago on the rpm-list@redhat.com email list:
You're very welcome.
> now that you are the RPM maintainer for the
> PostgreSQL Global Development Group, what main
> advantages do I find from PostgreSQL compared
> toMySQL?
Oooohh... flamebait :-)
There are certainly differences between MySQL and PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL holds up better under a heavier (more users) load that MySQL according to some benchmarks run by Tim Perdue, formerly of SourceForge. PostgreSQL has some killer database features, including the ability to run perl/python/tcl and pl/pgsql code in the backend. PostgreSQL is extremely extensible, allowing easy definition of custom types, classes, functions, and operators. Many contrib modules are inlcuded, and others are available that make it a good fit for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) usage. PostgreSQL is fully ACID compliant, and at version 7.2.1 is capable of surviving even power-off type failures typically without loss of data (this is still being worked on, and isn't perfect, but it works a good percentage of the time -- but shouldn't be relied upon instead of backups). PostgreSQL does subselects, which can be extremely useful at times.
And, depending upon your target usage and your licensing philosophy, you may prefer PostgreSQL's BSD license over MySQL's GPL, or vice-versa.
PostgreSQL, however, is a royal pain to upgrade, particularly if you use the advanced features such as user-written functions, operators, and types --- your extension modules will have to be rewritten and your data migrated in ASCII form.
For low usage, read-mostly databases MySQL is quite a bit faster than PostgreSQL. MySQL can be a little less intimidating to administer. MySQL typcially has better support from PHP, as well as some other web scripting languages.
> I'm running a small Web/Mail Server with not many
> accesses (at least today)
For your application MySQL may be the better fit. If the application is written to take advantage of MySQL's characteristics it may not be worthwhile to change over -- PostgreSQL applications typically unload more processing into the database backend since PostgreSQL has that capability (OpenACS is one such application -- see www.openacs.org).
YMMV.
--
Lamar Owen
You know what would be neat? If we could search, sort or filter the My Comments, so that we could find what we said to that person before, way back when, when we can't remember what thread, or find out what it was that person said to us before.
Just a thing I would wish for!