which db should I use?

[Peter Hansen]

Jim Richardson wrote:
> 
> I have a project that I want to do with python. It involves a database

It's unclear even after your description why you want to use a 
relational database.  Is it simply because that's part of the 
learning experience you've set for yourself, or are there particular
performance requirements or a need for relational operations?

> table with  some 100,000 rows, total size about 400MB and climbing. I
> will be adding about 700 rows a day, and occasionally want to do a
> query, but only occasionally. (I am putting all the posts from an active
> newsgroup in to a db for data gathering, 

Why not just store them as files in the file system?

> and to learn python and sql stuff) 

Well, okay, if it's just to learn SQL.  But you might find better
types of data for that purpose.

Just my thoughts on the matter...

-Peter