Chapter 1. Installing MySQL

In this chapter, we will see how to install MySQL and set it up for normal use. In this chapter, we will cover the following:

• Installing on Linux

• Installing on Windows

• Installing on OS X

• Configuring your system

• Setting the root password

• Deleting anonymous accounts

We will begin by installing MySQL on your system. If you already have a copy of MySQL 4.1 or above installed, you can skip ahead to the section "Setting the Root Password."

You should first download the version of MySQL that is appropriate for your system. MySQL is available either as source code or as a binary distribution for most systems. If you are learning to use MySQL, we recommend that you download the binary for your system because it is much easier to install. Additionally, MySQL's binaries are tuned for optimal, stable performance.

For each platform, MySQL is available in three versions: Standard, Max, and Debug. For the examples in this book, you will need the Max version. This comes with various useful options enabled, such as InnoDB transaction-safe tables, which we will use extensively.

MySQL is available in several versions at a time: the current version, the most recent version, and a couple of development versions in different stages. This book was written for MySQL 4.1.

You can download MySQL from

www.mysql.com/downloads/index.html

We will discuss how to install MySQL binaries on Linux, Windows, and OS X. MySQL is available for many other systems, but if you have one of these others, you will have to consult the MySQL manual for details on installation.