I have written numerous emails to FileMaker about their lack of support for Linux. I work for a government housing authority, but my family own a substance abuse counseling facility, whos network systems I also manage. We have been a FileMaker Pro-based shop since the days of FM 3.x. I run a Linux Firewall, a FreeBSD file server/print/DNS/etc. server. We have 1 Windows Server for FileMaker, and Windows desktops because of FileMaker.

FileMaker is the only thing hindering us from becoming a 100% Windows-free environment. Even with as busy as I am, I am getting close to getting rid of FileMaker throughout the network and dumping it to a PostgreSQL database with a web-based PHP front-end..perhaps even a Java front-end.

I like FileMaker, I always have, but their lack of support is becoming increasingly intolerable. It's great that 5.5 had a Linux version, but that's far too old.

Not the ideal solution but: how about running Server under Mac OS X? Then you can incorporate *nix technologies while having a great GUI. To get rid of FileMaker Windows for clients, the databases could work via IWP. I have no idea if any of the gecko family of browsers under Linux will work with IWP correctly. Konqueror may work, since it is based on KHTML like Safari loosely is.

My guess is that the limiting factor for FileMaker to make a *nix client version is X11's crappy API. This is *nix's biggest weakness: the lack of a truly robust, efficient, unified, modern, Graphic Interface. And the fact that there are 48 bazillion different Linuxes out there, each with its own quirks, makes testing a nightmare...

My I recommend Servoy

http://www.servoy.com/

It is very similar to Filemaker but it is purely java based and it will connect to any SQL back-end. You have browse, layout, find and preview modes. It is all drag and drop like FM. Their programming language is javascript but you can pick all the commands from a list like FM. It is very simple.

There are some growing pains with it still, as it is at v2 only, but it has great potential.

Here is a forum on Servoy:

http://forums.servoy.com/