Installing on Linux

Depending on your Linux version and how recently you installed it, you will quite likely already have a version of MySQL on your system, but it is also very likely that you won't have the newest version.

We recommend that you install MySQL on Linux from a MySQL-provided RPM ” assuming that your system supports this package management format. We suggest that you use the versions of the RPMs available from MySQL, instead of any that come from the vendor of your Linux distribution, particularly if you are just beginning with MySQL. The MySQL binaries are updated more promptly than any distribution, so they include newer improvements and bug fixes. Also, your directory structure will be set up as documented in the MySQL manual, which can make finding things easier to begin with.

Several RPM files come in the distribution. The ones you will need in order to run the MySQL server and client are MySQL-server- VERSION .i386.rpm, MySQL-Max- VERSION .i386.rpm, and MySQL-client- VERSION .i386.rpm. (The word VERSION will be replaced with the appropriate version number.)

You can install the server and client by typing this in your shell:

 rpm -i MySQL-server-  VERSION  .i386.rpm MySQL-client-  VERSION  .i386.rpm 

This will also start mysqld , the MySQL server, and create the appropriate entries in /etc/init.d/ to start the server automatically for you when your system is started.

If you want to install MySQL in some other way ”that is, not from an RPM ”refer to the manual for detailed instructions.

Please understand that installing MySQL can be quite complex, and your experiences may differ due to previously installed versions of MySQL or your version of Linux.