The business

I have a look at the SAP pages. It seems SAP and MySQL will merge soon. Cool.

Anyway, to run SAP I need glibc and libpthread whatever they are.

I look around the web and find they're library codes.

I download glibc and find the installation instructions. Like most Linux/GNU guides it assumes you know a lot about GNU/Linux.

It does warn that the installation process could take five or more hours.

And I know that it may be the wrong version or not work in some way or ways.

I've posted requests for help (with MySQL) on a couple of web sites (Apache Friends and sourceforge.net) and will wait for advise.

I keep checking these sites. My entries are read but no one has responsed yet.

I'm getting very tempted to switch to Microsoft based versions. I run an XP Pro notebook and could load PERL, PHP and MySQL and probably also an email MTA/SMTP like Exim.

With XP I can set restore points so that if it all goes terribly wrong I can roll back.

However, my XP build is my main system. I use it for job hunting and other tasks. I'd much rather keep it seperate from my development environment. If I wanted to I could buy another laptop just for development but until we get financing I want everything to be as cheap as possible.

Okay, so I put off rebuilding Linux on my laptop.

I look and look around the WWW and find Apache Friends which is run by an enthusiastic German from Berlin. He has a great product called XAMPP which installs Perl, PHP and MySQL in one go.

So I install it and run it. Very easy, so much easier than installing MySQL from the binaries. I don't really need PHP and Perl as my distribution of Linux comes with it anyway. But there's no harm.

XAMPP also provides a cool web page which shows which of these applications have installed okay. They all install fine ... except MySQL.

There follows the sound of a bullet being bitten, chewed and the swallowed (goes well with a strong red, e.g. Burgandy, by the way).

I rebuild Linux on my PC. I then download XAMPP again and run it. Same problem. I run MySQL, same set of problems.

At this stage it's very tempting to gnaw the carpet.

I look at Apache Friends forums. Most of it is written in German.

Kein Problem. I know some German (lived and worked there for a while, like the beer, still watch German news webcasts etc) so I can follow what's written. None of it refers to my problems. In fact his solution is so good that there are few installation problem reported anyway.

I end up posting a query on the forum, in German - well I think it's German. I apologise that German is my 3rd language and point out that I don't actually have a second language.

I then go to sourceforge.net. They claim to be the world's largest OpenSource software development website and I've found that this is most likely the case.

I find find a forum for Topologilinux (that's my version of Linux) and post the same query - but this time in English.

Looking around I find a link to Freshmeat I'm a little bit wary of opening this site as the name - for some reason - sounds like it could be a porn site.

But not that wary. I open it and find nothing pornographic at all. Nevermind.

A bit of searching on this site and I find an article on databases, Dude, Where's My Database? There's a massive set of responses to this article - I think the responses together are much longer than the article itself.

From this I get some ideas of alternatives to MySQL, e.g. Firebird and SAP.

You might be thinking what I've been thinking: this means I could download and use SAP for free on Linux? ? ?

Apparently so. There's a sound of cash registers in the background. If I could learn SAP skills ...

And that's where I'm at, looking at SAP as an alternative to MySQL for what would be a piffling little database.

But I don't really think that biting bullets is really the thing to do. Even if you're really hungry.

Not sure where that expression came from. Certainly doesn't help.

So, just before reinstalling I have a final look at the MySQL web site. And find something that might be useful.

It isn't (it's about Linux groups) but it points me in the right direction and I change the ownership of one of the folders (holding host.frm).

The end result is I no longer get this error message.

Instead I get another, new, improved error message. Well at least it's different.

I'm back looking at their web site.

Damn. It's this one.

If I was using Microsoft products to develop this project - and had similar installation problems - I'd have re-installed by now.

Well, I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and re-install MySQL and if that doesn't work, re-install my whole Linux distribution.

When not on my back due to:

- exhaustion as a result of trying to fix this MySQL problem
- exhaustion due to the flu
- Hamburg stag party

I've been doing some other stuff with Peter.

Our aim is to close gaps in market places by integrating existing solutions. So, we've been talking about another venture which may come to fruition before this technical one. It would give us experience, maybe some revenue and also maybe corporate foundations (e.g. holding companies etc).

This is progressing and we've worked on business cylces (i.e. order to delivery), break even analysis etc.

Regular readers will have had a couple of bad weeks or so. Can't blame them really as I haven't updated this blog for a while.

The reason. Reason? I don't need a reason, I have reasons.

Here they are:

- I was getting ever so slightly cheesed off with the MySQL problem
- I had a dose of flu which kept me in bed for a week
- At the weekend I went to Hamburg on a stag party.

I returned refreshed, well not quite refreshed - rather tired actually - and am now ready to go.

So today I went to Sysinternals for their excellent Filemon utility.

I use to run this everyday to see which files were, and were not, being loaded when I started an application under NT. It's great for getting to the bottom of errors.

And it's now available for Linux. That's the geek equivalent of winning the lottery and dating a supermodel.

I stress that I'm not a geek although I'd still like to date a supermodel. And I'm sure they'd like to date me if they'd heard of me. (Supermodels please note that my email address is at the right of this page).

So, I downloaded and installed Filemon and then ran it. I got an error message to the effect that it was compiled under GCC version 2 (for Linux kernel 2.4.2-2) whereas I'm using Linux kernel 2.4.20 compiled under GCC version 3.

And as this is all free - "if it's free it's for me" - I can't demand a refund.

Well that's just great: not only does my database application not run but the tool with which I was going to diagnose the fault doesn't run.

I may have to reinstall the database and see if that works.