Chandra> Thanks Monty, I just heard it in passing at a delphi user group Chandra> meeting. I am not sure which OS it was in connection with.

As we haven't heard about this before, I can't comment about this. There is nothing in the MySQL server that could explain this.

Chandra> However, a further query. Does MySql support transation Chandra> processing?

MySQL doesn't have commit/rollback (if that is what you are after). There is however a lot of ways to avoid rollback and as the MySQL server is very stable this isn't usually a very big problem. You may have to code a little more in your clients, but instead you gain a LOT of speed!

You can find more about this topic in the MySQL manual at:

http://www.tcx.se/Manual_chapter/manual_toc.html section: Transactions

Chandra> Do you recommend MySql as the best freeware (for Chandra> non-commercial) DBMS on the market? Sorry this is Chandra> probably too broad a question. But if you have any comments Chandra> it would be appreciated. I guess for me the other option at the Chandra> moment is interbase 4 which is offered free for the linux platform Chandra> I understand.

Of course :) MySQL is the most used SQL server on Linux and the user base is growing very rapidly both on Unix and Win32. MySQL supports also more languages and applications than most of the other SQL servers.

Seriously; There is some other commercial databases that are offered free for Linux; The major problem with them is that you will not get support or updates with them. Very few of them are provided source which means that if something goes wrong you have no alternative than buying their official version and hope that the problem is fixed in them. Check also out the limitations of the free versions of the SQL servers! In most cases they are unacceptable for anything else than testing!

As MySQL is available in source and as we have committed to release old MySQL versions under the GPL license, we will be around a LONG time. You can't count on this for any of the other commercial SQL servers.

MySQL also outperforms (in speed) all other SQL servers for most applications and MySQL provides a lot of nice SQL extensions that makes your life easier. As long as the MySQL SQL implementation support everything you need, it's extremely likely that MySQL will be your best choice.

The only other 'free' SQL server we can recommend is PostgreSQL, but it's definitely slower and has for some of our users been less stable than MySQL.

Check also out:

http://www.mysql.com/crash-me-choose.htmy http://www.mysql.com/benchmark.htmy

Chandra> Thanks Chandra> Chandran

Regards, Monty