What Linux edition we should chose?

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Michal Szymanski <dyrex@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:

Hi,
Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator. Now we
can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition will be the
best. We would like have access to new versions of Postgres as soon
as  possible, for Debian sometimes we had to wait many weeks for
official packages.

Regards
Michal Szymanski

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ArchLinux or Gentoo.

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On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 2:29 AM, Michal Szymanski <dyrex@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:

Hi,
Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator. Now we
can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition will be the
best. We would like have access to new versions of Postgres as soon
as  possible, for Debian sometimes we had to wait many weeks for
official packages.

Pgsql is pretty easy to build from source.

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 8:17 PM, Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 2:29 AM, Michal Szymanski <dyrex@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:

Hi,
Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator. Now we
can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition will be the
best. We would like have access to new versions of Postgres as soon
as  possible, for Debian sometimes we had to wait many weeks for
official packages.

Pgsql is pretty easy to build from source.

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And with ArchLinux its even more easy to keep track of its updates.
You don't have to make weird configurations. Just use a PKGBUILD
script from ABS (Arch Build System), change some settings, run makepkg
and your package is created with the default clean configuration. No
/usr/local stuff.

--
Nilesh Govindarajan
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Website: www.itech7.com

Michal Szymanski <dyrex@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:

Hi,
Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator. Now we
can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition will be the
best. We would like have access to new versions of Postgres as soon

With which distribution you are familiar?

as possible, for Debian sometimes we had to wait many weeks for
official packages.

That's not true, and it's no problem to build PG from source.

Andreas
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2010/5/31 Michal Szymanski <dyrex@poczta.onet.pl>

Hi,
Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator. Now we
can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition will be the
best. We would like have access to new versions of Postgres as soon
as possible, for Debian sometimes we had to wait many weeks for
official packages.

Regards
Michal Szymanski

Use whatever you want. I've been compiling PostgreSQL on Ubuntu, Debian and
Gentoo so far without any problems.
Choose the distribution that you're familiar with, take PostgreSQL sources
and compile as you wish.

regards
Szymon Guz

On Mon, 31 May 2010 08:47:25 -0600
Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 2:29 AM, Michal Szymanski
<dyrex@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:

Hi,
Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator.
Now we can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition
will be the best. We would like have access to new versions of
Postgres as soon as  possible, for Debian sometimes we had to
wait many weeks for official packages.

Pgsql is pretty easy to build from source.

Yeah it is. But what is it going to be an upgrade process? On a
production box?
Any experience to share on upgrading from source on Debian?

--
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it

2010/5/31 Ivan Sergio Borgonovo <mail@webthatworks.it>

On Mon, 31 May 2010 08:47:25 -0600
Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 2:29 AM, Michal Szymanski
<dyrex@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:

Hi,
Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator.
Now we can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition
will be the best. We would like have access to new versions of
Postgres as soon as possible, for Debian sometimes we had to
wait many weeks for official packages.

Pgsql is pretty easy to build from source.

Yeah it is. But what is it going to be an upgrade process? On a
production box?
Any experience to share on upgrading from source on Debian?

Usually that's pretty easy: for upgrading the minor version (e.g. from 8.3.1
to 8.3.3) it should be enough to compile the new sources, stop server, run
`make install` and run the server with new binaries. Upgrading from 8.3 to
8.4 can be easily done using dump from current version. There is nothing
wrong to run the new and old postgres versions parallel so you can copy data
from one database to another.
There is also pgmigrator, but I haven't checked that yet.

Remember to make a database dump before the whole operation :)

regards
Szymon Guz

Ivan Sergio Borgonovo <mail@webthatworks.it> writes:

On Mon, 31 May 2010 08:47:25 -0600
Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com> wrote:

Pgsql is pretty easy to build from source.

Yeah it is. But what is it going to be an upgrade process? On a
production box?

If it makes you feel better, build your own RPMs (or
$package-style-of-choice). This is actually a pretty good idea if you
are on a package-manager-based platform, as it makes it far simpler to
keep track of exactly what you've got installed. It's generally not
hard to take the source package supplied by your distro and stick a
new minor-release source tarball into it.

regards, tom lane

You should use whatever you are comfortable with.
I would go with ArchLinux for its ease of use and making packages. RPM
and DPKG are much harder to build than ArchLinux's .pkg.tar.xz
Also, if you install some libraries like python clients or some
software depending on PgSql from the repositories in RPM/DPKG based
OS, you will have a tough time with the dependency stuff.
ArchLinux provides a PKGBUILD already from ABS (Arch Build System)
which contains all the dependency satisfiers. It serves two purposes-
depedency satisfaction and self compilation.

--
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Facebook: nilesh.gr
Twitter: nileshgr
Website: www.itech7.com

Le lundi 31 mai 2010 10:23:51, Szymon Guz a écrit :

2010/5/31 Ivan Sergio Borgonovo <mail@webthatworks.it>

On Mon, 31 May 2010 08:47:25 -0600

Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 2:29 AM, Michal Szymanski

<dyrex@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:

Hi,
Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator.
Now we can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition
will be the best. We would like have access to new versions of
Postgres as soon as possible, for Debian sometimes we had to
wait many weeks for official packages.

Pgsql is pretty easy to build from source.

Yeah it is. But what is it going to be an upgrade process? On a
production box?
Any experience to share on upgrading from source on Debian?

Usually that's pretty easy: for upgrading the minor version (e.g. from
8.3.1 to 8.3.3) it should be enough to compile the new sources, stop
server, run `make install` and run the server with new binaries. Upgrading
from 8.3 to 8.4 can be easily done using dump from current version. There
is nothing wrong to run the new and old postgres versions parallel so you
can copy data from one database to another.
There is also pgmigrator, but I haven't checked that yet.

Remember to make a database dump before the whole operation :)

regards
Szymon Guz

Me as system architec, sysadmin and manager (gerencial power) jejej :)

we have choose Mandriva, it is quite easy to install and to maintain, and
speaking about packages there are many support in them, including PGSQL

LD

On Mon, 31 May 2010 17:23:51 +0200
Szymon Guz <mabewlun@gmail.com> wrote:

Yeah it is. But what is it going to be an upgrade process? On a
production box?
Any experience to share on upgrading from source on Debian?

Usually that's pretty easy: for upgrading the minor version (e.g.
from 8.3.1 to 8.3.3) it should be enough to compile the new
sources, stop server, run `make install` and run the server with
new binaries. Upgrading from 8.3 to 8.4 can be easily done using
dump from current version. There is nothing wrong to run the new
and old postgres versions parallel so you can copy data from one
database to another. There is also pgmigrator, but I haven't
checked that yet.

That's clear but there are a bunch of small and possibly very
annoying details that make deploying in production a bit more
challenging than ./configure, make, make install.

I admit I only compiled postgres in my /home when I was developing
an extension. It is something I do rarely and never on production.

If I was thinking to upgrade on a debian box that is already running
a packaged version I'd have to understand how deal with debian
patches (I think most were related to paths where postgres expect to
find it's stuff).

Once I understand what all debian patches do I'll try to see if I
can avoid them all so that upgrading will be easier the next time.

I'll have to see how debian ./configure the package, I'll have to
replicate the init.d script for the newer version, take care of
making the 2 servers run temporarily on different ports... etc...

I could even think of making a .deb

I think about it I could even come up with a longer list of things I
should do.

I bet I'm not the first one that's going to upgrade Debian from
source. So someone may share his recipe and caveats.

I was actually thinking to test 9.0 in my /home on some real world
DB. That could be a chance to learn how to upgrade from source.

--
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it

On Mon, 2010-05-31 at 21:14 +0530, Nilesh Govindarajan wrote:

if you install some libraries like python clients or some
software depending on PgSql from the repositories in RPM/DPKG based
OS, you will have a tough time with the dependency stuff.

Really?

--
Devrim Gündüz <devrim@gunduz.org>

On Mon, 2010-05-31 at 08:47 -0600, Scott Marlowe wrote:

Pgsql is pretty easy to build from source.

Right, but some sysadmins don't want to see development libraries on the
machines.
--
Devrim Gündüz <devrim@gunduz.org>

On Mon, 2010-05-31 at 01:29 -0700, Michal Szymanski wrote:

Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator. Now we
can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition will be the
best. We would like have access to new versions of Postgres as soon
as possible, for Debian sometimes we had to wait many weeks for
official packages.

It is not "many" weeks actually -- it is just their QA policy.

Anyway, I've been running an RPM repository, which has up2date packages,
which are releases on the same date as PostgreSQL updates are releases.
You may want to consider it, if you are familiar with CentOS,RHEL or
Fedora:

http://yum.pgrpms.org

Regards,Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator.
Now we
can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition will be the
best. We would like have access to new versions of Postgres as soon
as possible, for Debian sometimes we had to wait many weeks for
official packages.

--
Devrim Gündüz <devrim@gunduz.org>

On Monday 31 May 2010, Devrim Gündüz <devrim@gunduz.org> wrote:

On Mon, 2010-05-31 at 21:14 +0530, Nilesh Govindarajan wrote:

if you install some libraries like python clients or some
software depending on PgSql from the repositories in RPM/DPKG based
OS, you will have a tough time with the dependency stuff.

Really?

Depends. If you build a compat- RPM to supply the original system-provided
client libpq.so it will usually satisfy their package requirements. If you
don't, then you might find yourself needing to rebuild other packages to
coexist with upgraded PostgreSQL versions. Neither option is terribly
difficult to accommodate.

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damn monkey was just too fast."

Hi,

I run debian/testing since years and it is the best in my opinion.
Besides the fact that new versions come in quite fast (after the wait
phase from unstable to testing) the upgrade for major versions (eg 8.3
to 8.4) is very simple as it does not override the old files but does
a parallel install.

This is something I do miss from the RPM versions. Because if you do
not dump the data before you upgrade, you are quit screwed.

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 17:29, Michal Szymanski <dyrex@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:

Hi,
Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator. Now we
can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition will be the
best. We would like have access to new versions of Postgres as soon
as  possible, for Debian sometimes we had to wait many weeks for
official packages.

Regards
Michal Szymanski

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On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 4:40 AM, Alan Hodgson <ahodgson@simkin.ca> wrote:

On Monday 31 May 2010, Devrim Gündüz <devrim@gunduz.org> wrote:

On Mon, 2010-05-31 at 21:14 +0530, Nilesh Govindarajan wrote:

if you install some libraries like python clients or some
software depending on PgSql from the repositories in RPM/DPKG based
OS, you will have a tough time with the dependency stuff.

Really?

Depends. If you build a compat- RPM to supply the original system-provided
client libpq.so it will usually satisfy their package requirements. If you
don't, then you might find yourself needing to rebuild other packages to
coexist with upgraded PostgreSQL versions. Neither option is terribly
difficult to accommodate.

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damn monkey was just too fast."

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@Devrim: You got the reason from @Alan.
Self compilation has the advantage of custom gcc flags like -O3 -march
-msse, etc. which can improve performance.
Building RPMs is not a task that everyone can do. It requires
extensive reading about rpmbuild and writing the specfile.
So if you install directly from source without RPM, it won't satisfy
the libpq.so dependency, so you cannot install applications using yum.
This is not the case with Arch PKGBUILD, because the PKGBUILD is just
a bash script.

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On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 6:38 AM, Clemens Schwaighofer
<clemens_schwaighofer@e-gra.co.jp> wrote:

Hi,

I run debian/testing since years and it is the best in my opinion.
Besides the fact that new versions come in quite fast (after the wait
phase from unstable to testing) the upgrade for major versions (eg 8.3
to 8.4) is very simple as it does not override the old files but does
a parallel install.

This is something I do miss from the RPM versions. Because if you do
not dump the data before you upgrade, you are quit screwed.

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 17:29, Michal Szymanski <dyrex@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:

Hi,
Currently we use Debian, but it chosen by our OS admnistrator. Now we
can change our OS and it is question what Linux edition will be the
best. We would like have access to new versions of Postgres as soon
as  possible, for Debian sometimes we had to wait many weeks for
official packages.

Regards
Michal Szymanski

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Nope; you're wrong. Even RPM doesn't remove the data. But its always
safer to keep a backup.

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On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 11:30, Nilesh Govindarajan <lists@itech7.com> wrote:

Nope; you're wrong. Even RPM doesn't remove the data. But its always
safer to keep a backup.

I am not talking about removing the data I am talking of not beeing
able to access it because the database itself is still in the old
version.

Unless you use the migrate script, which just started to appear, you
had to dump the data, to the rpm upgrade and import the data.

I really prefer the debian way where I can run them parallel and
therefore test everything before I do a switchover.

--
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