DB2 Express-C Team Blog

Hi,

Here's a link to a great introduction to Express-C article on devx.com by Justin Whitney:

Introducing DB2 Express-C, with Demos

Thanks for the article, Justin!

There's been a number of posts to the support forum that appear to be a result of confusion regarding which version of Express-C to download and install. Here's a quick howto for you to get the right version.

1) Windows or Linux
- simple enough: are you running Redmond or Penguin? Express-C supports both, but you'll definitely need to know this one

2) 32 bit or 64 bit
- on Linux, run the 'uname -i' command. This command queries the system as to what platform is running, and should return one of the following:

• 'i386' => 32-bit
  
• 'x86_64' => AMD 64-bit
  
• 'IA64' => Intel 64-bit
  
• 'PPC64' => Power PC 64-bit
  

- on Windows, click "Start" and then "Run". In the dialog box, type winmsd.exe and click "OK". In the "System Information" window, locate the "System Type" record in the right hand pane. It should be one of the following:

• 'X86-based PC' => 32-bit
• 'Itanium-based PC' => 64-bit
  

3) 2.4 or 2.6 kernel (Linux only)
- to get the right kernel level download, run the 'uname -r' command from a terminal. This will return the full kernel level, though you only need to note whether it starts with '2.4' or '2.6'.

So now you have your operating system, your processor level, and kernel level for linux. The only thing you have to remember is that you cannot run the 64-bit version on a 32-bit processor.

Visit the download page to get the right level of DB2 for you.

A lot of people have asked for a mailing list for updates and notifications. We have created a list in cooperation with the International DB2 User Group (an independent organization of people - not controlled by IBM). You can see their web site at www.idug.org.

To subscribe the mailing list please go to the following web page

Express-C mailing list

Add your email address and select JOIN on the page. This information will never be released to third parties.

To send mails to the list, use "DB2-DB2-EXPRESS-C@WWW.IDUGDB2-L.ORG" as target address.

Hello everyone,

Good news!. A lot of people requested this, so after a lot of hard work, we are providing an experimental image of DB2 Express-C that can be installed on Windows XP Home. The image is available as of Friday March 10th, 2006. I encourage you to try it out by visiting our download page.

Please post any feedback either here or in the DB2 Express online forum.
Enjoy!

Raul.

Hello everyone,

As of Friday March 10th, 2006 new images were uploaded for DB2 Express-C with fixpak 11 fixes incorporated. I encourage you to download them as soon as you can from our download page.

Enjoy!

Raul.

It's official -- DB2's Express-C team has now doubled in size! Instead of just Raul trying to hold down the fort, Ian Hakes (that's me) has officially moved onto the team to help bring this great product out to developers and partners around the world.

We're in the midst of putting together a whole stack of new articles, multimedia presentations and web updates to get you up and running with DB2 Express-C. Be sure to check out the main site frequently, as we'll be updating often.

Talk to you soon!

An RSS feed is now available through the link in the bottom right side. Just drag the feed icon to your aggregator, or right click on the icon and bookmark the feed URL to the bookmark folder for your RSS feeds.

Hello to one and all,

I've taken it upon myself to put up our team's first blog posting, and to tell you a little about our team, and what we hope to do here.

The DB2 Express-C product is IBM's Information Management foray into releasing a freely distributable, freely downloadable version of the industry leading DB2 database program. The three of us who'll be posting here are the members of a new team leading the efforts to develop and nuture the development community around this new product. Our names are Ryan Chase, Raul Chong, and me, Ian Hakes (conveniently, my name comes last both grammatically and alphabetically).

What we're looking to do in this blog is to provide a bit of an informal means of keeping you informed about the news, events and highlights of the DB2 Express-C community. Eventually, we'll tack on an RSS feed, so your aggregator can keep you informed about the latest and greatest.

Don't forget to visit our home page, or our downloads page, or visit the developerWorks hosted support forum if you have any questions (links are available over there on your right hand side). Or, if you feel like just posting a comment here to one of our blog posts, by all means go ahead, though be advised that we won't be answering any support or product release questions in this space. You'll have to go to the more official channels for that.

Thanks for visiting, and we're all looking forward to a long and prosperous trip with every one of you out there!

Cheers for now.