MySQL in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Unix Source Distributions

The steps for installing MySQL on all Unix types of operating systems are basically the same. This includes Linux, Sun Solaris, FreeBSD, IBM AIX, HP-UX, etc. It’s recommended that you install MySQL with a binary distribution, but as explained in the previous section, sometimes you may want to use a source distribution. To install a source distribution, you will need copies of GNU gunzip, GNU tar, GNU gcc (at least version 2.95.2), and GNU make. These tools are usually included in all Linux systems and in most Unix systems. If your system doesn’t have them, you can download them from the GNU Project’s site (http://www.gnu.org).

Once you’ve chosen and downloaded the source distribution files for MySQL, enter the following commands as root from the directory where you want the source files stored:

groupadd mysql
useradd -g mysql mysql
tar xvfz /tmp/mysql-version.tar.gz
cd mysql-version

The first command creates the user group mysql. The second creates the system user mysql and adds it to the group mysql at the same time. The next command uses the tar utility (along with gunzip via the z option) to unzip and unpack the source distribution file you downloaded. You should replace the word version with the version number—that is to say, you should use the actual path and filename of the installation file that you downloaded for the second argument of the tar command. The last command changes to the directory created by tar in the previous line. That directory contains ...