Learning MySQL

Downloading and Verifying Files from the MySQL AB Web Site

We’ll now describe in detail the steps you need to follow to get MySQL up and running on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X systems. We’ll also describe how to start, stop, and configure your MySQL server.

If you install MySQL using the packages provided by MySQL AB, you still need Apache, PHP, and Perl for the later chapters in this book. You can instead follow the instructions to install the XAMPP integrated package to get everything you need. For Linux, you can also use packages provided by your distribution.

Downloading MySQL from the MySQL AB Web Site

The MySQL AB web site usually has the very latest versions of the MySQL software. To download from this web site, follow these steps:

1. Visit the MySQL AB downloads page at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads. Figure 2-2 shows what this page looks like.

2. Select the MySQL version that you want. You’ll normally want the latest Generally Available (GA) release; this is 5.0.67 at the time of writing. However, you can also download the cutting-edge beta version to try out new features or to help identify problems before the new version becomes the general release.

3. You’ll see a long list of packages for the MySQL version you selected; Figure 2-3 shows part of this downloads page. Select the appropriate package to download for your system. In the following sections, we’ll tell you what this is for each operating system and installation approach.

4. Before the file download starts, you’ll probably be ...