Painless PostgreSQL Windows Install Package

[Typing80wpm at aol.com]

Please let me know what you think of this, if someone is familiar, before I  
install it. Thanks!
Here is where google has finally lead me in my quest for a windows  installer 
for postgreSQL. Good Lord! Why is it that unix/linux type people find  it 
challenging to speak in plain English.  I have encoundered this SO MANY  TIMES. 
You struggle to find the download 
page, and then you have to be an ancient Egyptian Hieroglypics 
cryptologist to decipher which thing you REALLY need and which 
button to click on to get it!
 
I mean, why cant they be clever enough to have one link that says "IF 
YOU DONT KNOW SH!!T FROM SHINOLA, AND YOU HAVE WINDOWS, 
THEN CLICK HERE FOR AN AUTOMATIC INSTALL",  since the 
inexperienced person will not understand all the other baloney, and 
someone who DOES understand all the other baloney probably can do 
a cygwin installation from source code.
 
_http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/win32/_ (http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/win32/) 
 
I am GUESSING that what I need from this page is 
postgresql-8.0.2.zip
since I dont speak Japanese...
 
==================================================
 
postgresql-8.0.2.zip is the multi-language version of the installer. This 
file has been GPG signed at build time by Dave Page. Dave's public key 
may be found

at _http://www.pgadmin.org/pgp/davepage.pgp_ 
(http://www.pgadmin.org/pgp/davepage.pgp) 
 
postgresql-8.0.2-ja.zip is a Japanese specific version. This file has 
been by Hiroshi Saito whose public key may be found at:
_http://cre-ent.skcapi.co.jp/~saito/developer/pginst/hiroshi.pgp_ 
(http://cre-ent.skcapi.co.jp/~saito/developer/pginst/hiroshi.pgp) 
 
postgresql-8.0.2-binaries-no-installer.zip is a zip of the PostgreSQL  
installation directory. It does not include any of the bundled apps  or
drivers and is intended for expert users only!
 
 
 
 
 

_http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pginstaller_ 
(http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pginstaller) 
 
HERE IS THE POST which lead me to the about download page for the 
postgreSQL installer....
 
 
 
_http://www.jroller.com/page/nathan/Weblog?catname=%2Ftech_ 
(http://www.jroller.com/page/nathan/Weblog?catname=/tech) 
 
Wednesday August 25, 2004 
Postgres 8.0 Beta1 
 
It's been around for a while, but I have a work driven excuse to try out 
the latest version of postgres on windows and see how it goes.
This version has perhaps the biggest thing to happen to postgres for 
some years: a windows installer for postgres.. So that means no more 
mucking around with cygwin and the millions of libraries cygwin it 
needs JUST to get a decent open source database installed on a 
windows box.
 
MySQL I really didn't take seriously up until a few years back when 
they seemed to sort out what a transaction was all about, but I would 
still place Postgres over MySQL, simply because it started out with a 
decent underlying model (Object Relational under the covers) and 
built on that, rather than whipping up a quick and dirty solution and 
having to tack on things that should really have been in there since 
the word go.
 
I previously used postgres a lot on an internal CRM/Sales 
reporting/intranet J2EE app at a previous job, and aside from 
scheduling a vacuum to run every-so-often, it was maintenance free 
and rock solid. It sat on Red Hat linux, with JBoss, Resin (then 
migrated to tomcat later as they changed their licencing structure) 
and apache between the end users and it. Never seemed to need 
kicking over or restarting, just sat there and served up data quite 
reliably.
 
In the current job at CustomWare we've had the 8.0beta1 up for a 
little while on linux (servicing our jira, confluence and other random 
internal systems), so it seems to have handled that load ok 
(confluence has a fairly large swag of documents and information 
stored in it by now, and jira has lots of issues/support requests/tasks 
etc).
 
Anyhow, the windows installer seems pretty straight forward, it puts 
postgres in as a service and will create a user for it (with a warning 
when you try to pick a dummy password for the user account.. always 
nice to know it stops you from your own stupidity). Comes with 
PGAdmin III ready to go as an admin tool, so setting up databases, 
tablespaces, users etc is all straight forward.
 
Jira and jive seem to talk to the windows postgres no problems, I'll 
see what else I can point at it as I go, to give it a fair share of the 
development time on my laptop (rather than oracle) and see whether 
there are any bugs in the beta version.
 
So finally, MySQL should be worried in the windows open source db 
market... Because the only real reason mysql has been so widely 
spread is that it has a nice easy windows install. Postgres has that 
now too, it's also opensource and lots of documentation and support 
out there. Look forward to the full 8.0 release..
 
Thought I'd summarise the links (since people tend to want to find 
something if they end up here from google): 
 
Postgres main site - _http://www.postgresql.org_ (http://www.postgresql.org)  
Windows  installer for postgres - 
 
_http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pginstaller_ 
(http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pginstaller)   
JDBC Drivers for Postgres - _http://jdbc.postgresql.org/download.html_ 
(http://jdbc.postgresql.org/download.html)   
Postgres documentation - _http://www.postgresql.org/docs/_ 
(http://www.postgresql.org/docs/)   (really 
good general SQL reference too) 
(2004-08-25 01:30:50.0) Permalink  Comments [2]