My story

users
#1

A while back Tom asked people to tell their stories so this is mine.

I started with a project to create an application using a DBMS to
manage our local currency. This would be used by relatively basic
users who would almost certainly want to use Windows. I already had a
working knowledge of MySQL and I knew how to use that to do all the
admin tasks but I needed a GUI to do data entry and report writing. So
I started by trying to connect LO to MySQL with the ODBC connector.
After a lot of reading I installed the MyODBC connector, created a
driver and a DSN amd LO said "Can't find driver" or something like
that. I thought I'd try it in Linux to get the hang of it before
settling down to work in Windows and this gave me "Can't find library"
or something like that. Then I found that LO will connect to MySQL
directly without the need for a connector so I tried that and it
worked. But this facility is not available in Windows. OOo does have
the facility to connect directly to MySQL in Windows so at last I can
get on with the project. OOo does what I want and OOo Base is pretty
much like LO Base so I'm afraid it is goodbye LO.

Been good to know you

Tony

#2

Hi :slight_smile:
It's good to hear about people experiences especially when kept neat and short but i doubt i "told" or instructed or tried to 'force' anyone to do anything.

I might have suggested using newspapers or magazines to promote your project by inviting reporters to an event or to invite them to interview you about some aspect of your project. People generally think that to advertise their product they have to pay for advertisement space but the chances are that if you have a good news story then the press might be interested in writing a story about it.  It's cheaper and more likely to be read&remembered.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#3

Hello Tony,
Funny - I find exactly the opposite: the native MySQL-connector works perfectly
well under Windows/Vista with me, but I cannot get it to work under
either Debian-Wheezy or Linux/Mint-Lisa. Even though there is a lot of
discouragement regarding the usage of JDBC under LO (them obviously wanting
to diminish the dependency on Java!), I am actually using the JDBC-connector
on my Linux systems. It seems somewhat less buggy than ODBC.
In any case, I am trying out the native MySQL connector under Linux EVERY new
version of LO - so far with no success. If I had the time to do so, I would
compile the connector myself.
I have been using Base under both OO and LO for years (after using Lotus/Approach
before). What I REALLY want to do is build an application system for the
administration of a wind band (musicians, literature, uniforms, concerts,
supporting members and outside business contacts, etc., etc.) based on one of
the available frameworks (eg. Symphony). So far I have built my "homepage"
(www.rainermusik.at) using the PHP-Framework "Seagull". Unfortunately there
doesn't seem to be much going on within that framework anymore.
Regards from Salzburg
Heinrich

#4

A while back Tom asked people to tell their stories so this is mine.

I started with a project to create an application using a DBMS to
manage our local currency. This would be used by relatively basic
users who would almost certainly want to use Windows. I already had a
working knowledge of MySQL and I knew how to use that to do all the
admin tasks but I needed a GUI to do data entry and report writing. So
I started by trying to connect LO to MySQL with the ODBC connector.
After a lot of reading I installed the MyODBC connector, created a
driver and a DSN amd LO said "Can't find driver" or something like
that. I thought I'd try it in Linux to get the hang of it before
settling down to work in Windows and this gave me "Can't find library"
or something like that. Then I found that LO will connect to MySQL
directly without the need for a connector so I tried that and it
worked. But this facility is not available in Windows.

Sorry, wrong: the Native MySQL connector works fine for at least Windows XP

#5

What could be the reason for this? One person can use the native
MySQL connector to connect in Windows but can not in Linux. Another
person use it to connect Linux but can not in Linux. Likely, the first
person has the version that should be used in a Windows OS, and the
second person has the version that should be used in a Linux OS. This
connector is OS specific. Perhaps these two people should send each
other the version they have.
     On the LO website, the native MySQL connector has been pulled for
all OS's until more work is done on it. But the sad thing is that there
is not enough people that can do the amount of work required for keeping
this extension updated as newer versions of LO are developed.

--Dan

#6

Hi :slight_smile:
Good point!  Swapping the ones that do work and dropping the ones that don't sounds good.

Ideally the Extensions site would have a table with LO version down the side and platform/OS along the top.  There would be a few holes but at least people would know which need to be updated or which version of LO to stick with.  I don't see the point in removing stuff that does work under the right conditions.

From what i gather it 'only' needs someone using the relevant platform and relevant version of LO to compile the connector from source and the source is easily available.  The problem is that "only".  I compiled something once but i didn't have a clue what i was doing and just followed instructions very closely.  Luckily the instructions were good and it worked.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#7

Hi all,

     On the LO website, the native MySQL connector has been pulled for
all OS's until more work is done on it. But the sad thing is that there
is not enough people that can do the amount of work required for keeping
this extension updated as newer versions of LO are developed.

Yup, I pulled the plug - too much effort to maintain, too long to build
(at least on my workhorse Linux box), and too diverse a OS/bit
architecture scope, plus the fact that I had no hope of ever building it
for Windows.

The work to maintain is immense, and there are not enough people
willing, or simply able, to build the connector against the stable
branch of LO, i.e. currently LO 3.5.x, and the future LO 3.6, in order
to test for incompatibilities that some of the new development features
might throw up.

Just building LO for Mac takes 4 hours on my OSX server when everything
goes smoothly. If for some reason the build fails, which it often does
when building from master, then it takes more than 12 hours.

On my Linux box, it systematically takes 2 days to complete the build.
I'm not prepared to mobilise my machine for that amount of time anymore,
because it essentially means I can't do anything else with it, and I
have other projects to engage in.

The situation will be even worse with the newly released AOOo 3.4,
unless someone starts building the connector, then it will start to no
longer work either. Apache can not build it within the confines of its
project for licensing reasons, and so it will have to rely on third
party volunteers doing those builds and providing the connector
separately. If the actual OOo mysql extension continues to work at all,
then it is sheer luck.

Alex

#8

Oh, come on. It is obvious which version is which and I had the
Windows one. The instructions for creating the driver are very simple
and clear and I followed them. When it said driver not found it meant
diving into the depts of Windows which I am reluctant to do.

Fernand says that the native driver does work for Windows XP. So I must
have looked at some out of date documentation that said otherwise.
In that connection, Heinrich, I am sure I saw something to the effect that
if you are using Linux you should use JDBC and not ODBC. Can't find it
now though.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions as to what I can do now to get
it working but I don't need to do anything do I, just learn how to get
the best out of OOo Base. Like importing data from a CSV file which is
much more complicated than it need be.

Tony

#9

Hi Tony

Alexandro is giving you some very good intelligence Tony, you would pay attention.

//drew

#10

I have to put my hand up to the breakdown here too.
I was (am) hoping to build this connector but pressure of other work
has got in the way for the moment.

I'll be back...
Mark Stanton
One small step for mankind...

#11

Hi Tony,

I have just installed LO 3.5.3 and the native connector worked immediately
out of the box on Windows/Vista. Regarding ODBC: yes, my experience tells me
-- don't use it under Linux. There are bugs such as not SHOWING default values
for columns (even though they are actually stored correctly). Reluctantly I am now
using JDBC, but it at least seems to work correctly (even if it is a bit slow!).

One thing that has also bothered me with Linux/LO/Base: every couple of
minutes performance becomes dreadful. The systems monitor shows high CPU-usage
of my 4-CPU, 2.4 GH PC then. Only when I then save the Base-file (*.odb) does
everything return to normal. I have set the automatic save interval to 60 minutes,
but it seems to me that some action triggers the degradation. I haven't got
to the bottom of that as yet.

Regards,
H

#12

Hi :slight_smile:
If OOo works then sticking with it makes a lot of sense.  We are not really competing with them except in a reasonably friendly way.  There was a time when Oracle tried competing with us but that was just before they gave up and handed it off to a community organisation.  Now it's "co-operative competition".  Some people still work in both projects. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#13

Hi :slight_smile:
Oh!  I thought once you had built one connector for one set of circumstances then it would keep working.  So a connector built for LO 3.4.5 on Xp would keep working for anyone that used XP and stuck to LO 3.4.5, and with luck it might work for LO 3.4.6 too although it would be unlikely to work for any other branch.

If it's likely to stop working or probably wont work on a similar system then it sounds like a nightmare. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#14

Hi :slight_smile:
If it's going to take hours to build it and if it's likely to need to be re-done often then i think it would be better to focus your efforts elsewhere, like making the instructions easier to understand?  They probably are good already with nice coding brackets so people can just copy&paste command-line stuff without ever understanding what they are doing. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#15

I have been testing LibreOffice Base 3.5 and MySQL on a Windows 7 64bit
computer. I have found that the OpenOffice connector does work for me with
LibreOffice but the discussion that it does not work for everyone and is
likely to fail at some time in the future encouraged me to have another
look at using the ODBC connector.

I also found that I received a 'can't find driver' error but this is caused
by 64bit/32bit issues. As I understand it, LibreOffice requires a 32bit
ODBC driver and needs to be configured with the 32bit ODBC administrator.
The default ODBC administrator on my computer is the 64bit. Anyway all
these issues and the solutions are described in
http://ltlbgr.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/mysql_odbc.odt
at my blog site.

cheers

Mike