Install latest BSDDB

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Revision as of 07:14, 28 May 2007 by PeterL (talk | contribs) (Python BSDDB interface)
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Some people have encountered bugs in GRAMPS which are due to the database not working good. Installing the lastest version of the BSDDB database tends to solve the problem.

Why install latest version ?

Some errors have happened in the past outside of GRAMPS, with the BSDDB database format GRAMPS uses. See eg:

It can be expected that recompiling BSDDB could solve the problem. However, if BSDDB needs to be recompiled, one can as well install the latest version.

Furthermore, the people of pybsddb recommond doing a local compile if the use of BSDDB is critical. For genealogists needing GRAMPS this could be considered true.

Before you begin: BACKUP

Take a backup of your genealogical data before you do this. Remember, you should backup data of GRAMPS in .gramps format, and keep that somewhere save (GRDB format is NOT a good backup format!).

Obtaining latest BSDDB version

BSDDB core from Sleepycat (Oracle)

Go to http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/berkeley-db/db/index.html and download latest libdb code, unpack. Read in the downloaded code the file docs/index.html on how to configure and make the code. For Linux, you need to into the dir /build_unix and configure, then compile with make, then do sudo make install.

Python BSDDB interface

Next, go to http://pybsddb.sourceforge.net Download bsddb3-4.5.0.tar.gz (version at the time of writing), unpack and go in the created directory. Run python setup.py, this should find your installed bsddb3 returning something like:

Found BerkeleyDB 4.5 installation.
  include files in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.5/include
  library files in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.5/lib
  library name is libdb-4.5

Now run python setup.py build to make the package, and lastly install it with

sudo python setup.py install

which installs bsddb3.

Note: you need libpython2.5-devel to build. You can test with python test.py, but that does not work on my AMD64

Remove old BSDDB and replace with new

Not so sure yet on how this works. I did the following:

  1. Go into python directory:
    cd /usr/lib/python2.5/
  2. Move old version:
    sudo mv bsddb bsddb_old
  3. Go where new version is installed:
    cd site-packages
  4. Move new version to correct name:
    sudo mv bsddb3 bsddb
  5. Restart the PC. This is needed to make sure the old version is out of the memory when you run gramps (parts are preloaded by python, a commonly used scripting language).

The above should be further tested !!!

Test

You should now have GRAMPS use the latest BSDDB version. Test if all works