One of the major cons of MySQL is the fact that it is open source...and thereby free of charge.
Also it is both faster and more stable than Access.
You can download it from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/

It is true that it has no front end, but you can download a graphical front end from mySQL.com called 'MySQL Administrator'. I've never tried 'MySQL Adminstrator' so I can't really comment on that.

But there are also other freeware front ends available, like
DB Manager Pro Freeware from
http://www.dbtools.com.br/EN/downloads.php

or phpMyAdmin from
http://www.phpmyadmin.net


Using the command prompt interface of mySQL isn't really that hard, though, and the mySQL manual has pretty good syntax descriptions.

Well, none of those "admins" are what I would call a "font end" acceptable for commercial use. A secretary would be baffled.

OpenOffice.base is an ODBC program that has a wizard to generate a "reasonable" interface for a single table database. anything more complex will require a bit of work, but it has all the GUI widgets. Another one is QT designer by Trolltech. QT works alot like Access, but is GPL and more flexible.

Another DB to look into might be PostgreSQL, same idea as MySQL but preferred by GPL purists. Both are OK IMHO.

I would recommend mysql over access anyday, but i would like to second JRM's recommendation of postgreSQL. Here is a pretty good comparison of the two:

http://www-css.fnal.gov/dsg/external...-vs-mysql.html

What i like about postgres is it has better support for triggers and PL/sQL.