Free transactional database system software for linux

Firebird is a relational database offering many ANSI SQL-99 features that runs on Linux, Windows, and a variety of Unix platforms.

Firebird offers excellent concurrency, high performance, and powerful language support for stored procedures and triggers. Firebird Relational Database has been used in production systems and under a variety of names since 1981.

Firebird is a commercially independent project of C and C++ programmers, technical advisors and supporters developing and enhancing a multi-platform relational database management system based on the source code released by Inprise Corp (now known as Borland Software Corp) on 25 July, 2000 under the InterBase Public License v.1.0.


New code modules added to Firebird are licensed under the Initial Developers Public License. (IDPL). The original modules released by Inprise are licensed under the InterBase Public License v.1.0. Both licences are modified versions of the Mozilla Public License v.1.1.

Installing:

In order to install the firebird version of IB 6.0 you will need to perform the following steps:

1. Get the required packages:

Get the glibc update from RedHat, the one I used
was from ftp://updates.redhat.com/7.0/i386/glibc-2.2-5.i386.rpm

Get ncurses4 from
ftp://carrier.ision.net/pub/ftp.redhat.com/i386/en/RedHat/RPMS/ncurses4-5.0-2.i386.rpm
or another redhat mirror.

Get Firebird from
ftp://firebird.sourceforge.net/pub/firebird/release/FirebirdSS-0.9-1.i386.rpm

2. Prepare the installation:

Log in as root.
Use a plain text console to do this and be sure
that all Gnome desktops are closed.
(One user reported that the Gnome desktop
(apparently ICEwm)
blocked port 3050. I could not reproduce this
here, but it seems that it uses port numbers
that arent assigned in /etc/services for own
purposes)

3. Add localhost.localdomain to /etc/hosts.equiv:
echo localhost.localdomain >>/etc/hosts.equiv

4. Change to the directory where you have placed
the downloaded packages.

5. Install the glibc update:
rpm --install --force glibc-2.2-5.i386.rpm

6. Install libncurses.so.4:
rpm --install --force ncurses4-5.0-2.i386.rpm

7. Install Firebird:
rpm --install --force FirebirdSS-0.9-1.i386.rpm

8. Add /opt/interbase/bin to your path:
You can either change /etc/profile
or do
export PATH=$PATH: /opt/interbase/bin
or
change the profiles in your users home directories

9. Check that all went well:

Read /opt/interbase/SYSDBA.password
to get your SYSDBA password.

gsec -display
should display the list of known users
(SYSDBA only after a fresh install)

isql /opt/interbase/examples/employee.gdb
SQL> SHOW TABLES;
should display all tables from this database
SQL>quit;

LMS (LAN Management System) is the integrated system of networks management designed for various size internet providers (ISP).

That software writed in PHP, Perl and C, works with variuos database systems.

Open Media Collectors Database project (OpenDb) is a PHP and MySQL based inventory application that allows you to easily catalog and lend media-related items, including DVD, VCD, CD, VHS, games, books, and laser discs.
There are also quite a few Contributed item types available, and if thats not enough you can define your own.
OpenDb is GPL licenced and built on PHP and MySQL. Anything that you can collect and lend, you can catalog with this system. OpenDb allows you to add new types, by describing them in system database tables designed for the purpose.
It includes workflow mechanism for lending, possibility to use different themes and/or creating themes, retrieving data from Amazon, imdb & others, plugins, language packs, etc.
Main features:
- Catalogue all sorts of things including DVD, (S)VCD, DivX, CD, VHS, Games, Books and Laser Discs
- Lending workflow
- Flexible add of new types
- Themes
- Supports metadata from Amazon, imdb, etc.
- Plugins
- Language Packs

Alternatives system is an implementation of a Debian alternatives system; a system that allows several programs with the same or similar functions to be installed on a single system at the same time.
This implementation solves some problems and limitations of original implementation.
Alternatives architecture
General engine:
- alternatives-auto - turn into auto mode some alternatives item
- alternatives-manual - turn into manual mode some alternatives item
- alternatives-update - update current state of alternatives symlinks
Special scripts for the packages:
- alternatives-install - register new alternatives config, for use in %post package script
- alternatives-uninstall - unregister some alternatives config, for use in %preun package script
ALT Linux specific:
- alternatives-helper - helper script to use in package scripts
- alternatives-upgrade - tool to upgrade from old config format (XML based) to new.
Directories:
- /usr/bin - all scripts live here
- /etc/alternatives/packages.d - all package configs
- /etc/alternatives/auto - symlinks to registered configs
- /etc/alternatives/manual - list of alternatives in manual mode
- /etc/alternatives/links - for internal use only, alternatives symlinks lives here
- /usr/share/alternatives - directory with some helper functions and scripts
Original Debian alternatives implementation has some limitations and problems, so we (ALT Linux Team) rewrite this subsystem. What changes we have made?
- You dont need to give special generic name for altenatives file. This name is autogenerated now.
- This version is written in shell, awk and sed , so we reduce a number of dependencies, therefore, number of the packages in basesystem.
- We use different update model. Original alternatives system maintains its own database, by creating/removing files in system. In our alternatives (rpm) packages contains its configs and places them into generic directory during package installation. After package removal its config is automatically removed. It works like Debian menu subsystem, and its more stable.
- Now we have not any limitations for master-slave hieracly depth.
- New alternatives system works with no groups, but with each item. You can turn into manual mode any available item. There are only one difference between master and slave: weight calculation algorithm. Slave alternative have same weight as a master alternative.
- alternatives-update script corrects invalid manual alternatives, by switching them into auto mode. In original alternatives was situations with broken symlinks. Also new system doesnt create symlinks if target file does not exist. As a result, we also reduce number of broken symlinks.

phpDatabase.net is an free and pure php database script.
Main features:
- creating and dropping database
- creating, changing and dropping tables and sequences
- selecting, inserting, updating and deleting data from tables
- automatic locking of files, so simultanous changing the data is possible.
- transaction processing, commiting or rolling back of made changes
- default auto commiting mode
For all of this you only need to download one php Script , include it and start to use its functions in your own php Application. Of course this will never be so performant and universal as fore example MySql but very often it is just enough. First application where we used it was phpAlbum.net.
phpDatabase is a PHP database library, implementing database features without using any third party database system. You have only to include it in your code as following:
require("phpdatabase.php");
and you can start using its functions.
This library has four main categories of functions:
- Database functions - used for creating and dropping database
- Error handling functions - used to request the error status of db,i.e. last error message
- DDL functions - data definition language, used for creating and manipulating database objects like tables
Enhancements:
- Bugfix release, corrected replacing of column names in where and set clauses.

WebSiteSystem provides a set of tools that facilitate the development of a Web site. Sporniket Web Site System also contains a prototype of a "ready to use" Web site solution.
From a simple XML description, PHP code is generated using an XSL stylesheet. Each code generation module address one specific goal, narrowed by some hypothesis. The code generation process involves Ant.
Enhancements:
- Added export to form definition file for model and filter.
- Removed bean.xsl (not used is this module...).
- Fixed include directory.

Wikidbase is an idea that combines the functionality of a database system and a wiki web application.
The wikidbase concept is based on the view that non-technical users of a database system (i.e. those who are the experts of the nature of the data they handle) should be able to create and evolve their database model over time (i.e. without paying a database expert over and over again to do it).
This is particularly relevant to non-profit and charity organizations.
Furthermore, since the designer of a conventional database system cannot foretell all future demands of the system, it is highly likely that a database model will be frozen too early, causing problems later on when the requirements of an organistion change - as they so often do.
A conventional database is a system for information storage and retrieval that is highly optimised through organisation of the data into a rigid model; as such, whilst being highly optimised, it is not easy for a non-technical user of the system to later change the model (e.g. to add or change fields, or tables), change reports and queries, or alter the data-entry interface.
A wiki is a website that allows non-technical users to easily edit the contents of webpages, allowing them to add images, alter styling, etc. A wiki can be likened to an unstructured database, since there is no predetermined modal for the information that will be stored, and so a wiki can be used to store highly flexible data - and lots of it - (wikipedia, a web wiki-based encylopedia, is a good example of this). Unlike a structured database, however, information held in a wiki can usually only be retrieved by string searches, and it is not possible, therefore, to retrieve structured information from the wiki (e.g. a list of phone numbers or email addresses for all staff members).
Wikidbase can be thought of as more than just a database, as a rich groupware application that will be capable of storing and organising all sorts of information (e.g. fully relational data, plain old information pages, files, images, media, semi-structured data, shared calendar type information, etc.). Wikidbase will be released as open source under the GPL licence (i.e it will be free).
Enhancements:
- Minor optimizations have been made and work begun on calendar-view enhancement and user authorization.
- The database model has been updated for future optimization.
- Some screencasts are available.

Phplabware project is a web-driven database management system. Phplabware runs on a server and is accessed through a web browser. Databases can be designed within a web-interface.
Data-entry takes place in forms, which can be altered using phplabwares plugin mechanism. Search results can be output in reports, which are generated based on simple HTML templates. Phplabware supports file and image uploads and allows for full-text searches in uploaded materials.
A UNIX-like user and group access control mechanism allows for fine-grained read and write control at both the level of a complete database as well as individual records. The (php-based) plugin mechanism allows for easy and fast adaptation of phplabware to any specific needs.
Phplabware was developed at a number of Molecular Biology labs, and therefore ships with predefined databases targeted to the needs of Life Sciences labs. Currently, modules are available for antibodies, protocols, pdfs, pdbs, and files.
One of the design goals is that users only have to enter as little data as possible. The local pdf reprint module, for instance, (the virtual library) only requires the pdf file, and the unique identifier from Pubmed.
Apart from the provided modules, phplabwares functionality can be extended and tailored to your specific needs. A web-interface lets the system administrator easily design new tables, which are completely integrated with phplabware.
Phplabware consists of a number of php scripts. It uses adodb as a database wrapper, and is developed using postgres and mysql as an SQL server (and will probably work with others too). Installation is simple, and version upgrades are completely taken care of by the php scripts. It has been tested on both Linux (Suse, RedHat, Mandrake) and Mac OS X, and should work in Windows too.
Enhancements:
- The following bugs present in the previous release (0.6) were fixed: Safari users were not able to edit tables; the view icon did not work when MySQL was used as the RDBMS; the delete icon did not work; and the next/previous icons did not work.