>>If not via ODBC, how do Linux clients talk to Linux-hosted PostgreSQL/MySQL?
>>
>>In my case I use python and use python modules to connect (there are several pg8000, psycopg2, pymssql, and others). But there are direct connections for C++, C, Pascal, and of course the many web frameworks.
>
>OK, I understand some open-source DBs support direct language access (with appropriate libraries). But that list must be limited. I suspect some connections from other languages (dunno if Python is an example) are basically wrappers for Java or some other language that is supported.
>
>And, do those wrappers use a directly-supported language, or do they use ODBC under the hood?


http://dev.mysql.com/doc/connector-net/en/

For .NET, mysql provides a connector library.
Once that library is installed, the steps for connecting to mysql are almost identical to those I use to connect to SQL server, except that I use mysqldata client instead of sqldata client.

I don't know what's under the hood of that connector. The doc's that I read didn't say.