|
 |
|
| |
2.1.2.2. Choosing a Distribution Format
After choosing which version of MySQL to install, you should
decide whether to use a binary distribution or a source
distribution. In most cases, you should probably use a binary
distribution, if one exists for your platform. Binary
distributions are available in native format for many
platforms, such as RPM files for Linux or DMG package
installers for Mac OS X. Distributions also are available as
Zip archives or compressed tar files.
Reasons to choose a binary distribution include the following:
Binary distributions generally are easier to install than
source distributions.
To satisfy different user requirements, we provide two
different binary versions. One is an optimized server that
is a smaller, faster binary. The other is a server
compiled with debugging support. These servers are named
mysqld and
mysqld-debug. Both versions are
compiled from the same source distribution, though with
different configuration options. All native MySQL clients
can connect to servers from either MySQL version.
Under some circumstances, you may be better off installing
MySQL from a source distribution:
You want to install MySQL at some explicit location. The
standard binary distributions are ready to run at any
installation location, but you might require even more
flexibility to place MySQL components where you want.
-
You want to configure mysqld to ensure
that features are available that might not be included in
the standard binary distributions. Here is a list of the
most common extra options that you may want to use to
ensure feature availability:
You want to configure mysqld without
some features that are included in the standard binary
distributions. For example, distributions normally are
compiled with support for all character sets. If you want
a smaller MySQL server, you can recompile it with support
for only the character sets you need.
You have a special compiler (such as
pgcc) or want to use compiler options
that are better optimized for your processor. Binary
distributions are compiled with options that should work
on a variety of processors from the same processor family.
You want to use the latest sources from one of the
BitKeeper repositories to have access to all current
bugfixes. For example, if you have found a bug and
reported it to the MySQL development team, the bugfix is
committed to the source repository and you can access it
there. The bugfix does not appear in a release until a
release actually is issued.
You want to read (or modify) the C and C++ code that makes
up MySQL. For this purpose, you should get a source
distribution, because the source code is always the
ultimate manual.
Source distributions contain more tests and examples than
binary distributions.
|
|
|
