Re: A newbie's opinion - postgres NEEDS a Windows binary!

as far as the pre-built binary goes...
you don't have to compile the windows code - the full install
of cygwin has a pre-built binary that you can use. you
download and install the full cygwin and then you read the
readme found at:
cygwin/usr/doc/Cygwin/postgresql-7.1.2.README

DO NOT use the readme found in cygwin/usr/doc/postgresql
because it is mostly useless and confusing.

you can also scan the postgresql/cygwin mailing list archives
for more info.

as far as being unix zealots goes...
that's all well and good and i can fully appreciate your postion.
but...

a large number of us are not given the option of what platform
we get to set up our databases on. my office is win2k and sql
server. i'd love to switch over to postgres (and my boss' budget
would as well) but there are performance constraints with the
cygwin version that are simply unacceptable to us. that is not
necessarily a function of postgres but a function of the cygwin
libraries. whatever the cause the fact that postgres will crater
under cygwin given more than 20-30 connections on the same
hardware as the linux version serving 100+ connections makes us
very uncomfortable.

my personal belief is that a win32 native version of postgres
would resolve the connection issues and allow many more people
to adopt postgres.

this is of course coming from someone that isn't contributing
to the code base and will therefore only "complain" about this
this one time and will accept any virtual beatings you care to
deliver ;)

given that i don't have any grasp of the postgres code base any
suggestion that i offer up will be simply grasping at straws.
i do know that the apache group has had similar problems with win2k
and their new architecture is targeted at resolving multi-platform
issues by providing a platform independent layer for networking
and file manipulation. their performance under win2k is orders of
magnitude better not having to go through the posix layer. my
guess is that this required a near total rewrite on their part
and would probably require the same on the part of the postgres
team.

rjsjr

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
> [mailto:pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org]On Behalf Of Doug McNaught
> Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 10:20 AM
> To: Simon Willison
> Cc: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] A newbie's opinion - postgres NEEDS a Windows
> binary!
>
>
> cs1spw(at)bath(dot)ac(dot)uk (Simon Willison) writes:
>
> > This is my first time posting here and I've not lurked that much so
> > feel free to lamblast me if I'm out of line - but from what I've seen
> > of PostGres one of the biggest barriers to more widespread use is the
> > lack of an easy to use windows binary. I'm a PHP/mySQL web developer
> > who would love to switch over to using Postgres, but since I do all my
> > development under windows (I've got linux installed but due to various
> > things I find windows a more productive environment on the desktop)
> > I've hit something of a dead end. I tried installing cygwin but failed
> > to get it working properly, and there's no way I'm going to shell out
> > for a Windows C++ compiler to compile from scratch.
>
> AFAIK Postgres requires Cygwin since it is basically a Unix program.
> There has been talk of doing a "real" Windows port but it would be a
> lot of work and we're mostly Unix zealots here. ;)
>
> If you are having trouble getting Cygwin installed you should try the
> appropriate mailing list or newsgroup for help.
>
> -Doug
> --
> Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.
> --T. J. Jackson, 1863
>
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