Recommend a simple local FLOSS database for beginners?
1mon 1d ago by piefed.social/u/klu9 in linux4noobs@programming.dev
Context
I've started a Fediverse watch party (#ReMonsterdon on Mastodon) & want to store & organize info about it (films shown; films scheduled to be shown; candidates for showing; dates; relevant links like streams, trailers, Wikipedia; images like film posters etc).
At the moment, I'm using a combination of stuff on my computer, i.e. a folder with text & image files, and a collection on NeoDB, a Fediverse media catalogue.
But I'd like a more all-in-one & organized/organizable file (easy to search, sort etc). A lot of people use a spreadsheet for that kind of thing. But I was under the impression that that's what databases are for.
I don't know much about either. I use spreadsheets very little and databases not at all (except NeoDB, I suppose).
Request
Is there a simple, local, FLOSS, GUI database, suitable for beginners, that I could use for this?
(I had a look at my installation of LibreOffice, but for some reason the options for creating a Base file are greyed out or missing).
(I am not yet ready to try self-hosting. So something that is local, preferably in a system package, .deb or .AppImage. My OS: Linux Mint 22.2 Xfce.)
Thanks in advance
There’s nothing wrong with using a spreadsheet for that purpose.
Sure, use a database if you think it’s going to grow very big, need complicated queries or will be the backend of a service. Or, you just want to learn about databases.
Libre Office will work with native flat files or other db backend. SQLite with a gui app is good for learning SQL.
Thanks for the tips
Linux Mint doesn't install libreoffice-base but you can add it through Synaptic (the graphical package manager) or with apt.
apt install libreoffice-base
Thanks for that
I would say there is no such thing as a "simple" database system. Databases are extremely complicated.
I mean, they're not THAT complicated. Don't be dissuaded from learning if you wanna learn! But more complicated than a spreadsheet for sure... at least for basic stuff. Advanced stuff, maybe not so much, just different.
Thanks, looking into Kexi now
Another alternative to a database that will let you practice SQL is duckdb.
I use it frequently at work with python and parquet files which are type safe, compact, and very performant. I use Python with Positron as my IDE (I'm a data scientist) and it has a built in parquet viewer that makes the data exploration a little less abstract.
SQLite and any of a plethora of front ends.