ODBC connection to MS-Access on Ubuntu

Question

One of our employees created a Microsoft Access Database and has built a Joomla! module around it. It is currently running on a WAMP server, with an ODBC connection to the

Answer 1

I'm not entirely sure I understand the use case here, but here are a few thoughts:

• Access databases are file-based databases and therefore server-less.
  This means that the database file itself can reside on a local Windows machine, a windows network share or a SMB share on a linux box.

• However, the application that queries the database must have access to the necessary drivers to manipulate the database.
  On Windows, this is not an issue: All Windows version come pre-installed with the Jet drivers for the old .mdb format. For the new .accdb format, you must have one of MSOffice 2007/2010/2013, Access 2007/2010/2013, Access Runtime 2007/2010/2013 or the standalone ACE driver installed to be able to use the new database format.

• On Linux, the mdbtools package provides some degree of compatibility with the .mdb file format, allowing such a database to be queried and modified by a Linux application directly.
  Another Open Source library (java) for manipulating (.mdb and .accdb) databases is jackcess.

• ODBC drivers for Linux exist, but as far as I know, they are commercial and can be fairly expensive, see the easysoft Access ODBC Driver.

• See also this SO question: Connecting to access database from linux

Basically, if you are looking for an easy solution that would be Open Source, going to MySQL or using a local SQLite database will be a lot more workable on Linux.