Learning MySQL and MariaDB

Chapter 2. Installing MySQL and MariaDB

The MySQL and MariaDB database server and client software works on several different operating systems, notably several distributions of Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Sun Solaris, and Windows.

This chapter briefly explains briefly the process of installing MySQL or MariaDB on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows operating systems. For some operating systems, this chapter has additional sections for different distribution formats. For any one platform, you can install MySQL by reading just three sections of this chapter: the next section on choosing a distribution; the section that applies to the distribution that you choose; and Post-Installation at the end of the chapter. There’s no need to read how to install every version of MySQL.

The Installation Packages

The MySQL and MariaDB packages come with several programs. Foremost is the server, represented by the mysqld daemon.^[2] It has the same name in both MySQL and MariaDB. This daemon is the software that actually stores and maintains control over all of the data in the databases. The mysqld daemon listens for requests on a particular port (3306, by default) by which clients submit queries. The standard MySQL client program is called simply mysql. With this text-based interface, a user can log in and execute SQL queries. This client can also accept queries from text files containing queries, and thereby execute them on behalf of the user or other software. However, most MySQL interaction is done by programs ...