The installation of mySQL community version 5.1 was relatively simple and painless on Windows. The GUI install tool worked very well, asked me for passwords and port information, and ocnfigured itself to run as a windows service. Linux, for both RHEL4 and Unbreakable Linux, was a different challenge. I could not get the 7.x version to install or configure properly so I dropped back to the 5.1 version. What happened to 6.x? Did they skip that version entirely or just stop with the community edition and split off a commercial version from a different source base? For Linux I had to drop back to the tar distribution of 5.1 and unpack it according to the directions in the installation note. This installation included creating a user mysql, changing permissions on files and directories, and starting the database. This worked fine but was a little cumbersome when trying to attach to it with sqlDeveloper. The default jvm that comes with both versions of Linux was out of date and would not work properly. I had to download a jvm from java.sun.com and install it. Once it was installed I had to change the path to find it and launch sqlDeveloper.
The problems did not stop here. Once I had sqlDeveloper up and running I had to configure the jdbc driver as I did with Windows and try to connect to the database. Unfortunately, the tar installation does not create a user. To do this I had to launch mysql as root and create a user. I did this with the command:
Once I did this, I was able to test the connection from sqlDeveloper using oracle/oracle10g. Everything just worked as it did on the Windows installation at this point.
My two questions that come from this installation are….
1) Why is Windows always easy for installation and configuration of software packages. Is the administration of Linux that difficult? Are the administrators of Windows that lazy? I have been a Solaris and Linux admin for years and found it relatively easy to configure and install software packages by editing configuration files. It seems like Windows installations must use a GUI tool to lead you to get the right answer.
2) Why do packages not list dependencies? When I was installing the software on Linux I had to go pull down a jdbc driver and jvm. The jvm was included with the Windows distribution. Why not on Linux? The readme file should list what packages are required. Apache does a very good job of listing software packages required to add options and build specific components.
The size of mySQL was very trivial when it comes to disk space. It consumed about 400K of memory and less then 100M of disk space. The initial functionality appears to be similar to the Oracle XE installation but more tests will show if this is true or not.
next, installation of SQL Server on Windows