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Currently there are four different types of software available, database applications, some sys-admin type scripts, Linux/Alpha patches, and a utility program, a parallel port control program. The patches are for UNIX programs so that they will compile on Alpha under Linux. If you have never heard of the Alpha platform, let alone Linux, then these patches will do you no good. Sorry. But if you do run Linux on the Alpha platform, you might be interested in these patches, so read on. |
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My scout troop was using this software prior to the closing of the public site to spread the scout advancement management among multiple adult leaders. With the closing of the public site, I setup a local instance of it for my scout troop. In so doing, I made some revisions to the software and added badly needed setup instructions. To continue in the way of open source software, I am hereby releasing my version of this software in hopes it might be of use to other scout troops abandoned by the public site. Please see the included README file for more details on my changes and rational for them.
NOTE: What follows below is out of date. The current version of PostgreSQL is 7.4.x, and I have not done any testing of it. Though as of at least version 7.2.x, it worked, out of the box, on Linux/Alpha, without problem. I will update this as I have time.
This is a full-feature, commercial quality, excellent SQL server. If you have ever worked with Sybase or Oracle and wished you could get something comparable for your own Linux box, or a free, high quality, open source SQL server for a project, personal or commercial, PostgreSQL is definitely worth checking out. Though one of the disadvantages to PostgreSQL for some time has been that its Linux/Alpha port has been lacking, if not completely useless. But this is true no longer!
With help from some intrepid Linux/Alpha and PostgreSQL hackers (Uncle George, Bruce Momjian, and myself), there is now a patch for the most recent versions of PostgreSQL that when applied, will fix almost all of the Linux/Alpha platform specific problems. Below is a list of the supported versions and the required patches:
Apply the patch from top level directory of the PostgreSQL source tree
with the command 'patch -p1 <
/path/to/patch/postgres-X-alpha.patch', then change to the
./src directory, configure using the linux_alpha
template, and build, install, and use as usual. Also, do not be worried if
the version number in the filename of the patches does not match the
version number of PostgreSQL it is listed with. It is not a typo, it just
means that there was no changes in the patches from a pervious version of
PostgreSQL. This is especially true for the 7.0.x series, which is
currently up to 7.0.3. The patch listed above for 7.0.x has been tested with 7.0,
7.0.1, 7.0.2, and 7.0.3 and works without problem. There might be a few
warnings about offsets in the patch applications, but nothing that needs
to be worried about.
These patches are interim, and only to be used for compiling PostgreSQL on
the Linux/Alpha platform and none other. The current CVS tree, which will
be released as 7.1, contain the all the necessary support needed for
Linux/Alpha. This means that when 7.1 is released, it will compile
"out-of-the-box" on Linux/Alpha and the above patches will no longer be
needed! :) The only Linux/Alpha related problem with PostgreSQL that
remains are a few unaligned traps from postgres itself. They
hamper performance a bit, but are otherwise harmless. Additionally, with
each successive version of PostgreSQL, they become rarer and rarer. As 7.1
stablizes, I will review the development versions and decide then if they
warrant any additional attention. As a data point, with 7.0.3 on my Alpha
box, after heavy development use of PostgreSQL, I have do not have a
single recorded unaligned trap in the last month.
At this point you should the best open source SQL server running on one of the hottest Linux platforms! :) Problems with these patches or the resulting PostgreSQL source tree? Feel free to email me, along with a detailed explanation of your problem and your Linux installation (i.e. distribution type/version, and gcc version). These patches were developed on a RedHat 5.2 Alpha machine and are tested on a Debian 2.2 XLT366 (21164) Alpha machine running kernel 2.2.14 and compiled using gcc 2.95.2.