[PLUG] MS Access -> ? for OOo

[John Jason Jordan]

I have a file containing about 5,000 records in MS Access 2000. I have
not needed to access this data for over a year, but suddenly I need to
again. The last time I did it I used OOo on Linux, which could read and
merge the data I needed. However, I just tried it and it no longer
works. I asked on an OOo e-list and was told that support for the .mdb
file format had been dropped from the Linux versions of OOo. I find
this rather unbelievable (why, if it was working before?), but so be
it. I guess it is time to get the data out of Access and into something
else. The database contains numerous queries, sub-tables and forms, but
they could all be recreated. The main table is the important part.

I know next to nothing about databases. I have heard of a number of
different databases - mySQL, etc. Which would be the best for a dummy
who just needs to merge data into OOo Writer documents, a la mail merge
(but more involved)? 

Also, does anyone know if there is anything in Linux-land that can read
the Access data?