minimum hardware requirements for small postgres db

[Paul Smith]

I am having difficulty finding documentation stating the minimum hardware requirements to run pg under Windows. (I did look in the FAQ & User Manual)

I seek an open source RDBMS with close adherance to ANSI standards, good free graphic design tools for drawing of the ER Diagram, validation of the ERD model, and generation of the SQL required to build the DB.

I only want to design a few small DB Apps using about 20 tables, for single-user offline environment, hopefully runnable on Nettop class hardware under WinXP or Win7 32bit.  

I want to access the db via a Forms driven GUI and a Report-writer with features comparable to old versions of Access, but preferably also open-source.

 If Atom class nettop not sufficient, would like to know the minimum class of CPU, RAM, GPU required.

Thank you in advance for any assistance

[Daniel Staal]

--As of February 20, 2013 10:50:12 AM -0300, Paul Smith is alleged to have
said:

> I seek an open source RDBMS with close adherance to ANSI standards, good
> free graphic design tools for drawing of the ER Diagram, validation of
> the ERD model, and generation of the SQL required to build the DB.
>
>
> I only want to design a few small DB Apps using about 20 tables, for
> single-user offline environment, hopefully runnable on Nettop class
> hardware under WinXP or Win7 32bit.  
>
>
> I want to access the db via a Forms driven GUI and a Report-writer with
> features comparable to old versions of Access, but preferably also
> open-source.

--As for the rest, it is mine.

While Postgres would probably work for you, I suspect it's probably
overkill. I'll let others answer your direct question, but I want to
suggest that you take a look at SQLite as something likely closer to your
needs: <http://www.sqlite.org/>

Not saying Postgres isn't great - it is. But sometimes you need an
industrial-grade nailgun, and sometimes all you need is a hammer.

Daniel T. Staal

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[Wolfgang Keller]

> I seek an open source RDBMS with close adherance to ANSI standards,
> good free graphic design tools for drawing of the ER Diagram,
> validation of the ERD model, and generation of the SQL required to
> build the DB.

Database design and development tools are (imho unfortunately) not
included with the PostgreSQL project.

There are a lot of free ones (besides commercial ones) listed here that
work with PostgreSQL:

http://www.databaseanswers.org/modelling_tools.htm

On "weak" hardware, I would avoid anything that's Java-based.

> I only want to design a few small DB Apps using about 20 tables, for
> single-user offline environment, hopefully runnable on Nettop class
> hardware under WinXP or Win7 32bit.
>
> I want to access the db via a Forms driven GUI and a Report-writer
> with features comparable to old versions of Access, but preferably
> also open-source.

LibreOffice Base comes with a native PostgreSQL driver.

If you want to implement "real" applications, there are a bunch of
database RAD frameworks available for Python:

using PyQt (& Sqlalchemy):
Pypapi: www.pypapi.org
Camelot: www.python-camelot.com
Qtalchemy: www.qtalchemy.org

using PyGTK:
Sqlkit: sqlkit.argolinux.org (also uses Sqlalchemy)
Kiwi: www.async.com.br/projects/kiwi

using wxPython:
Dabo: www.dabodev.com
Defis: sourceforge.net/projects/defis (Russian only)
GNUe: www.gnuenterprise.org

Pypapi, Camelot, Sqlkit and Dabo seem to be the most active and best
documented/supported ones.

On "weak" hardware, wxpython (Dabo) and GTK (SQLkit) will probably
be more suitable than PyQt.

Sincerely,

Wolfgang

[Paul Smith]

Thanks for the 2 replies @Daniel, @Wolfgand so far:   I spent quite some time researching (reading various reviews) which RDBMS best suited my needs, and my first choice was Postgres for the reasons given and on account of its well regarded clear documentation.

I need a good rich set of functions to manipulate data, particularly date/time, and read SQLlite, being fast but tiny, was poor on that.  Being a novice, I am only going on what I read : although a recent annual survey said MySQL is still the most popular dbms - but its due to inertia from it being at one time, best there was, years before proprietary Oracle got control, and that MySQL is not very 'pure', requiring much application crafting, and so 'locks you in' - precisely the trap I fell into over 20 years ago with Access, and dont want to repeat.  Somewhere I did read pg needs strong hardware, so I thought to choose HSQLDB, as that seemed 2nd best after pg in terms of 'clean' & adherance to ANSI standards.  I got as far as installing HSQLDB on my Nettop and it appears to run ok.  Thinking the DBMS choice sorted I then searched for Design tools and a suitable Forms based GUI, but was surprised to find no suitable clients for HSQLDB !.  From a 2009 tutorial/review of MySQL Workbench, it sounded just what I wanted, but was 'dog slow' on 2GHz 4MB laptop, and only worked with MySQL I had already rejected !    (I read LibreOffice Base (at that point v3.4) was a very poor FE compared to the FE integrated into Access, and worse still crashes, corrupting your DB. I also read all the Libre development concentrates on WP & Spreadsheet, not Base, which has hardly changed since Sun owned it if not before. But Base, having drivers for both pg & HSQLDB, is my fallback position for Forms GUI if nothing better around).  I belatedly saw HSQLDB not even listed in the recent popularity survey, so that may explain why there is a lack of FE tools for it ?

It is for the above reasons I am revisiting the suitability of pg.  As stated my DB App will be single user offline use, small, about 20 tables, and many of those will be just short 'picklists' triggered by Form input for easier-validated dataentry.  I notice the FAQ, User Manual, & neither of the 2 replies directly addresses my primary question: "If Atom class nettop not sufficient, would like to know the minimum class of CPU, RAM, GPU required."   Is it quite difficult to make even a rough recommendation of minimum hardware for the above 'small' db ?

[Sergey Konoplev]

> It is for the above reasons I am revisiting the suitability of pg. As stated my DB App will be single user offline use, small, about 20 tables, and many of those will be just short 'picklists' triggered by Form input for easier-validated dataentry. I notice the FAQ, User Manual, & neither of the 2 replies directly addresses my primary question: "If Atom class nettop not sufficient, would like to know the minimum class of CPU, RAM, GPU required." Is it quite difficult to make even a rough recommendation of minimum hardware for the above 'small' db ?

For single user personal use small database any modern (down to 5
years old) nettop will be more than enough. I would recommend 256MB as
the bottom limit of RAM. See also this link
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.2/static/supported-platforms.html.


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