I know we shouldn't speak M$ here but, I need to find a program like MS Access. I have several databases I would like to convert. I really am new at this and SQL means very little to my tiny brain. So please be gentle.

Thanks

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but you might want to consider CrossOver Office: http://www.codeweavers.com/
If you have your MS Office install disks, this will allow you to at least install MS Office on you Linux machine, and from there you can run Access. I'm doing that myself right now in an effort to convert some tables in an Access DB over to MySQL...

My apologies if I've misunderstood your question, and you're looking to do something completely different

Would it be possible to dump/export the contents of your database(s) to a file that could then be imported into a database on Linux? If you can come up with a file that CREATEs the tables and loads them via a series of INSERTs, you have your choice of several databases into which they should be importable. Those that come immediately to mind: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Firebird. You may have to tweak the import file due to slight variations in the syntax of the SQL used but this probably wouldn't be a huge undertaking. (Easy for me to say since I haven't used Access beyond the simplest applications and that was years ago.)

Thanks for the replies. I think the main problem is that I don't know how to use MySQL in the first place. Running Mandrake 10.1, I went into the software manager and loaded MySQL. Tried to find it in the menus after and there was no reference. After much consternation I finally was able to get a menu item and run MySQL. The little bar showed up at the bottom with the hourglass spinning and after about 30 seconds of that ... nothing. No interface. I guess my main question should probably have been - What is the interface for MySQL or did I install it wrong?
(I did look at Knoda and from the screenshots, that's what I am looking for, but leary as it is still in development. Can't afford to lose data.)

Trying to learn - I did find the book "The Complete Reference - Linux Fifth Edition" on sale and am starting from the beginning. Is this book to old or will it help me?

Thanks to all and for this forum for being willing to help us noobs.

Sorry for being too green at these things. Did some more research and relaize I am not ready for SQL. A friend is downloading Wine for me to see if I can get Access 2000 up and running to at least work with my files.
Thanks for your patience.
One question though - Has anyone used the Open Office Database project yet?

AFAIK open office database project is just a frontend for mysql and other SQL servers.

mysqld is the server and it works in the background. mysqladmin is a utility for doing admin stuff and mysql is the command line app for actually working with a database.

There are tons of info on mysql if you search the web.

I can get Access 97 to start in Wine, but I can't do much with it - not that I've really tried.

I don't exactly understand the initial question; is it that you want a Linux database, or a Windows database? If the latter, you might look at Superbase. It actually runs quite well in Wine, with only a few glitches. I have an application written in the Superbase DML that has about 31,000 lines of source code that runs 98% in wine although it is a bit slow on disk I/O.

If you are looking for a Linux database, then it is time for you to learn mysql or postgresql.

Open Office has a very nice database front end built into it, along with a macro language called star basic (much like MS-Access and vbasic)

The trick is getting it all working, you'll need a database backend, I'd recommend MYSQL or Postgres and unixodbc from www.unixodbc.org

Theres a howto to glue it all together here on the unixodbc website, here http://www.unixodbc.org/doc/OOoMySQL9.pdf


HTH

Mad.

Now we're getting somewhere. I am looking for a Linux database to get away from the Windows database. The Open Office option looks like what I may need and learning MySQL will probably be the next thing. However being new at Linux in general, it looks like I'll have a lot of learning to do over the next few months.

This is as exciting as learning Basic with that ole' TRS80 back in the day.

Thanks all for the help

Well, if you go for MySQL, here's the manual:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/index.html
Enjoy
PS I believe OpenOffice will have a new DB to replace Access in the next major release...
Google to the rescue ... see this link and read on ... http://dba.openoffice.org/miscellane...a20.html#files

I have downloaded OO's DB (still in beta) in w2k (sees imported table but won't let me create form or report) and Linux (doesn't see table). I need to file bug reports. I made my living with Access for several years and doubt it's robust enough to be at all reliable under Crossover, and I don't think it wtll run at all, SOLite is another cdoice for back end. Its commands are a growing subset of PostgreSQL's and I find it easier to start.