All: I've got a client running Sage AccPac, and they've become very tired of running it single user on Windows. Bog slow, unstable ... you know, the same old story. They are sneakernetting a laptop running XP right now. This laptop is never connected (thank your preferred deity) to anything other than a printer. Their current Windows version of AccPac came bundled with IBM DB2 as the embedded back end data engine. This client is using various open source solutions I've provided and have complete confidence in moving their accounting to Linux. I'm investigating moving the install from Windows to Linux, and upon doing so, the database backend comes into play as an unbundled product. I have the Sage-supported (Linux) choices of: Pervasive SQL Oracle 10g IBM DB2 Express Licensing costs appear to be reasonable, ranging from a low of $100/user (Oracle) to $867 (server) + $172/user (IBM DB2). I have no prejudged preferences from one to the other technically - it's just one more database to maintain. Annual service fees are normal (@20% / year) for everything. Given the situation, money/pricing isn't a major consideration. Stability and maintainability are paramount. This is a low transaction volume operation, with only an accountant and a couple management types using the software. One concurrent user is about it, and I would expect hands-on usage to amount to a few hours a week. Client access is done via an AccPac client application installed on the user's workstaions - either Linux or Windows. Sage doesn't charge for clients, and their only issue is the server and the number of concurrent users that access it. I expect no difficulty allowing client access tunneled through VPN across their internal intranet to the accounting server. Any thoughts? Preferences on database backend? Experiences with Sage AccPac on Linux? Experience working with commercially produced binary executables? I would prefer to compile and optimize this myself, but this may not be an option with a commercial product. I wish Sage supported PostgreSQL or MySQL. :( Note: I've seen the Nitix implementation of Linux/AccPac/DB2 (LAD?) aimed at expertise-free accountancy installs and I'm very scared by a single commercial vendor supported one-off Linux distribution. Although I do not object to the Nitix concept, I would never consider using Nitix in a commercial setting. Too much potential for long term trouble by a small sized single vendor operation with no real significant community support. I find comfort in being part of a large community, hence my preference for Debian on production servers. Sage has blessed RedHat and Novell/Suse as supported Linux distributions, but as Brad so eloquently stated this week, I have no interest in getting THAT mess on my hands. Years ago I used RedHat and I have no interest in trying it again ... too many scars. I'm just on the front end of this investigation and there is no time sensitivity from my perspective. -- Bill Strosberg