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2.1.1. Operating Systems Supported by MySQL
This section lists the operating systems on which you can expect
to be able to run MySQL.
We use GNU Autoconf, so it is possible to port MySQL to all
modern systems that have a C++ compiler and a working
implementation of POSIX threads. (Thread support is needed for
the server. To compile only the client code, the only
requirement is a C++ compiler.) We use and develop the software
ourselves primarily on Linux (SuSE and Red Hat), FreeBSD, and
Sun Solaris (versions 8 and 9).
MySQL has been reported to compile successfully on the following
combinations of operating system and thread package. Note that
for many operating systems, native thread support works only in
the latest versions.
AIX 4.x, 5.x with native threads. See
Section 2.12.5.3, “IBM-AIX notes”.
Amiga.
BSDI 2.x with the MIT-pthreads package. See
Section 2.12.4.4, “BSD/OS Version 2.x Notes”.
BSDI 3.0, 3.1 and 4.x with native threads. See
Section 2.12.4.4, “BSD/OS Version 2.x Notes”.
Digital Unix 4.x with native threads. See
Section 2.12.5.5, “Alpha-DEC-UNIX Notes (Tru64)”.
FreeBSD 2.x with the MIT-pthreads package. See
Section 2.12.4.1, “FreeBSD Notes”.
FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x with native threads. See
Section 2.12.4.1, “FreeBSD Notes”.
FreeBSD 4.x with LinuxThreads. See
Section 2.12.4.1, “FreeBSD Notes”.
HP-UX 10.20 with the DCE threads or the MIT-pthreads
package. See Section 2.12.5.1, “HP-UX Version 10.20 Notes”.
HP-UX 11.x with the native threads. See
Section 2.12.5.2, “HP-UX Version 11.x Notes”.
Linux 2.0+ with LinuxThreads 0.7.1+ or
glibc 2.0.7+ for various CPU
architectures. See Section 2.12.1, “Linux Notes”.
Mac OS X. See Section 2.12.2, “Mac OS X Notes”.
NetBSD 1.3/1.4 Intel and NetBSD 1.3 Alpha (requires GNU
make). See Section 2.12.4.2, “NetBSD Notes”.
Novell NetWare 6.0 and 6.5. See
Section 2.6, “Installing MySQL on NetWare”.
OpenBSD 2.5 and with native threads. OpenBSD earlier than
2.5 with the MIT-pthreads package. See
Section 2.12.4.3, “OpenBSD 2.5 Notes”.
OS/2 Warp 3, FixPack 29 and OS/2 Warp 4, FixPack 4. See
Section 2.12.6, “OS/2 Notes”.
SCO OpenServer 5.0.X with a recent port of the FSU Pthreads
package. See Section 2.12.5.8, “SCO UNIX and OpenServer 5.0.x Notes”.
SCO Openserver 6.0.x. See Section 2.12.5.9, “SCO OpenServer 6.0.x Notes”.
SCO UnixWare 7.1.x. See Section 2.12.5.10, “SCO UnixWare 7.1.x and OpenUNIX 8.0.0 Notes”.
SGI Irix 6.x with native threads. See
Section 2.12.5.7, “SGI Irix Notes”.
Solaris 2.5 and above with native threads on SPARC and x86.
See Section 2.12.3, “Solaris Notes”.
SunOS 4.x with the MIT-pthreads package. See
Section 2.12.3, “Solaris Notes”.
Tru64 Unix. See Section 2.12.5.5, “Alpha-DEC-UNIX Notes (Tru64)”.
Windows 9x, Me, NT, 2000, XP, and Windows Server 2003. See
Section 2.3, “Installing MySQL on Windows”.
Not all platforms are equally well-suited for running MySQL. How
well a certain platform is suited for a high-load
mission-critical MySQL server is determined by the following
factors:
General stability of the thread library. A platform may have
an excellent reputation otherwise, but MySQL is only as
stable as the thread library it calls, even if everything
else is perfect.
The capability of the kernel and the thread library to take
advantage of symmetric multi-processor (SMP) systems. In
other words, when a process creates a thread, it should be
possible for that thread to run on a CPU different from the
original process.
The capability of the kernel and the thread library to run
many threads that acquire and release a mutex over a short
critical region frequently without excessive context
switches. If the implementation of
pthread_mutex_lock() is too anxious to
yield CPU time, this hurts MySQL tremendously. If this issue
is not taken care of, adding extra CPUs actually makes MySQL
slower.
General filesystem stability and performance.
If your tables are large, performance is affected by the
ability of the filesystem to deal with large files at all
and to deal with them efficiently.
Our level of expertise here at MySQL AB with the platform.
If we know a platform well, we enable platform-specific
optimizations and fixes at compile time. We can also provide
advice on configuring your system optimally for MySQL.
The amount of testing we have done internally for similar
configurations.
The number of users that have run MySQL successfully on the
platform in similar configurations. If this number is high,
the likelihood of encountering platform-specific surprises
is much smaller.
Based on the preceding criteria, the best platforms for running
MySQL at this point are x86 with SuSE Linux using a 2.4 or 2.6
kernel, and ReiserFS (or any similar Linux distribution) and
SPARC with Solaris (2.7-9). FreeBSD comes third, but we really
hope it joins the top club once the thread library is improved.
We also hope that at some point we are able to include into the
top category all other platforms on which MySQL currently
compiles and runs, but not quite with the same level of
stability and performance. This requires some effort on our part
in cooperation with the developers of the operating systems and
library components that MySQL depends on. If you are interested
in improving one of those components, are in a position to
influence its development, and need more detailed instructions
on what MySQL needs to run better, send an email message to the
MySQL internals mailing list. See
Section 1.7.1, “MySQL Mailing Lists”.
Please note that the purpose of the preceding comparison is not
to say that one operating system is better or worse than another
in general. We are talking only about choosing an OS for the
specific purpose of running MySQL. With this in mind, the result
of this comparison might be different if other factors were
considered. In some cases, the reason one OS is better for MySQL
than another might simply be that we have been able to put more
effort into testing and optimizing for a particular platform. We
are just stating our observations to help you decide which
platform to use for running MySQL.
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