[Mageia-dev] HEADSUP: mariadb available for testing

[Maarten Vanraes]

Hi all,

mariadb-5.5.15-0.mga2 should be hitting the mirrors soon (at cauldron 
core/updates_testing). It's purpose is to be an alternative to mysql. for that 
reason, mariadb packages provide also the similar mysql targets.

mariadb is intended to be a drop-in replacement for mysql, it goes so far to 
actually have the same files and ABI's as mysql. after looking at their forking 
process (it's not actually a full fork, they start from mysql and then patch), 
i've seen that it's actually very good for a drop-in replacement. There are a 
few differences ( http://kb.askmonty.org/en/mariadb-versus-mysql-compatibility 
) but they are minor. I've done a few minor tests with amarok, akonadi, drupal 
and phpmyadmin (and of course mysql client).

NOTE: mariadb provides actually most storage engines mysql provides as well, 
but also the original and unpatched MyISAM and InnoDB engines from mysql. On 
top of that, it has some extra storage engines. XtraDB, which is the drop-in 
replacement storage engine for Innodb, is essentially an innodb with extra 
patches from various sources, like google, facebook, etc... ( see 
http://kb.askmonty.org/en/mariadb-versus-mysql-features )

I've chosen to use mkrel 0 atm, because it's not a released version yet, I've 
talked extensively to mariadb developers, and they mentioned that they did 5.3 
and 5.5 in parallel, so that 5.5 should be released as beta pretty soon. When 
i talked about our release schedule, they did mention that mariadb-5.5 should 
be final before februari.

My plan is as follows:
1. provide testing package [DONE]
2. clean up spec file from mysql and file some patches upstream [DONE]
3. provide newer testing package when it's released as a alpha/beta
4. if testing is satisfactory (not breaking buildsystem or mysql) submit to 
core/release and get more testing.
5. if final 5.5 release is on time, have mariadb into mageia2

now there, we have a few options:

considering that mariadb is essentially mysql + extra features, if we ship 
both mysql and mariadb, we should ensure that normal users don't go from 
mariadb to mysql. (if a storage engine would be used that's NOT in mysql, 
suddenly a few databases might not work, even though the data is still there.)

A. provide both but with vendor preference
making sure one of them both is preferred should be ok, since they conflict 
anyway, if a user installs the non-preferred one, she knows what she's doing.
( I think a note could be added here for warning purposes )

B. only use mariadb anymore
=> That's the easiest and safest option...
_IF_ mariadb works well. (which i'm sure we'll see in our testing)
(IMHO, if it worked for libreoffice, i don't see why not for mariadb)


any opinions? testings? problems?