Subject: Questions of a possible newcomer

From: [email-masked] (J.Plewe)
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 94 14:55:44 +0200

Hello!

I have some simple questions concerning Postgres. The answers will
help me to decide wether Postgres is a suitable system for my
purpose.

- is it possible to use Postgres within a (hetero-)network?
- is it possible to embed Postgres-accesses in conventional
  C-programs?
- how is the performance compared to other relational systems?
- do I have to be SU to install Postgres?
- which platforms are supported?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

- Joerg Plewe, MPI-Dortmund, Germany

---

From: [email-masked] (Kai Petzke)
Date: Fri, 8 Apr 1994 17:22:26 +0100 (MET DST)

> - is it possible to use Postgres within a (hetero-)network?

It is, as long all the machines affected have the same
byte-ordering.  So it is not (directly) possible to access
a Postgres running on a Sparc from an frontend running on
Intel.

> - is it possible to embed Postgres-accesses in conventional

There is the libpq library, which allows you to issue Postquel
queries (Postquel is the Postgres Query Language).

> - how is the performance compared to other relational systems?

Performance is rather good, much better than Ingres.

> - do I have to be SU to install Postgres?

You can install Postgres on any account.

> - which platforms are supported?

DEC MIPS: ultrix4
SPARC: SunOS 4.1.2 and 4.1.3
HP PA-RISC: HP-UX 9.00 and 9.01
DEC ALPHA: OSF/1 1.3
IBM POWER: AIX 3.2.5
INTEL 386: Linux

Kai