Michal Hrušecký

I already mentioned this repository several times on my blog. It is the repository where I'm trying to keep bleeding edge stuff for MySQL. I've been updating it recently and we've got new package there and some interesting updates I want to mention.

MariaDB and MySQL

First thing to mention is that this repository contains MariaDB builds. MariaDB is fork of MySQL and their goals are certainly interesting. For list of differences, try upstream page. As I consider it interesting, I'm keeping eye on it Maybe our users may benefit from it. But currently it is also a source of possible problems in this repository as it contains MySQL as well. I tried to modify both packages in such a manner that both provide mysql and conflict with each other. It should be possible for user to decide which "mysql" he wants. But as I'm still trying to test it and improve it, it may still contain some glitches. But I pushed it here, so you can try it and help to make it perfect. Currently available versions in this repository are MariaDB version 5.1.41 and MySQL version 5.5.1. You can decide which one do you want to try by installing either 'mariadb' package or 'sun-mysql' package. If you encounter any problems, please let me know. And as always, backup while you still have something to backup

MySQL Workbench

Other thing that was updated is MySQL Workbench which is now available in this repository in version 5.2.14. Again, even Sun considers this version beta, so be cautious. But I really like it. It combines together previous Workbench and Administrator (I think even Query tool, but I didn't used that one too much). It has nice and shiny GUI and it definitely worths trying. It is a huge difference against version present in openSUSE 11.2 not mentioning older releases. But I'm keeping here 5.2 branch of MySQL Workbench for some time already so maybe you already noticed

Other builds

Maybe you also noticed, that MySQL is getting build in our Build Service not only for various SUSE distribution but also for RedHat, Fedora and CentOS. Same applies in serveratabase:UNSTABLE repository and therefore not only MySQL but also MariaDB is getting build here for these distribution. Lately I tried to figure out dependencies for MySQL Workbench and I succeeded in building that for Fedora too (It would be too difficult to support RedHat or CentOS). That's great thing about openSUSE Build Service. It encourages you to build your packages even for non-SUSE people. But as I don't have these distributions anywhere, these builds are even less tested then SUSE ones. But if you want to try them and report errors you encounter, feel free to do so

Link

Last thing to mention is URL where you can find everything I wrote about in this post. And here it is, just choose your distribution

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/server:/database:/UNSTABLE/

It's been some time already since I informed you about server: database: UNSTABLE repository in openSUSE Build Service. Today I want to mention what is going on there. As the name of the repository suggests, it's probably not the best idea to use anything from here on your production servers

MySQL 5.4

I'm keeping there MySQL 5.4. Currently in version 5.4.3 beta. 5.4 branch of MySQL contains some patches to improve performance. That is the reason why it might be interesting. Downside is that it isn't released as often as 5.1 and it is not considered production ready. I already wrote something about this, so let's move to something new.

MySQL Workbench 5.2.8

What can be more interesting is that this repository also contains the newest version of MySQL Workbench. Have you ever used MySQL Administrator or MySQL Query Browser? These tools will die soon. Even versions in 11.2 are some kind of zombies on sedatives. All functionality provided before by MySQL Administrator and MySQL Query Browser should be provided by MySQL Workbench 5.2 in the future. MySQL Workbench already reached beta stage with current version. And it can be found in server: database: UNSTABLE repository. On first sight it look quite nice. I didn't played with it more deeply, just checked that it is basically working, but you can I tried few things with Administrator plugin, but I will investigate it more deeply and then write something about it.

Last note, to get some more attention screenshot of the main window

Currently there are several MySQL versions released by SUN. Latest version marked as stable is MySQL 5.1. This version is in build service for some time already and you may noticed that it is on it's way to Factory (no yet there, but working on it). Other newer releases are 5.4 and 6.0. 5.4 is currently in beta stage and date of stable release should be announced later this year. 6.0 is in alpha stage and it might take quite some time till it will be released as stable.

So what? Well, recently I mentioned splitting server: database repository and creating UNSTABLE branch. One reason to do this was to provide a place where experimental version of MySQL can live. And so I packaged 5.4 and it is now available in server: database: UNSTABLE repository. Why you might be interested in testing MySQL 5.4? According to the release notes, main difference between 5.1 and 5.4 are performance and scalability improvements.

Why you should be afraid of testing it? Well, officially it's beta. So even SUN doesn't recommend it for production servers. And I didn't have time to test it myself yet more deeply. I packaged it, fix few minor things so it will get built and tested if it runs. You may found something missing or somewhere else that you would expect. If you encounter some error, let me know and I'll take a closer look at it Once I'll settle all urgent things, I'll take a deeper look at this package.

After some discussions which happened on mailing list lately, I decided that server: database repository can use some more adjustments. Some people complained about changes I introduced with MySQL 5.1. One point of view is that using factory version on production server is a bad idea but on the other hand, where would you get something newer for your old openSUSE to let it survive a little bit longer before upgrade to newer version? I'd like to introduce following repository scheme which should solve these problems...

server: database: STABLE

This repository will contain last officially released version of some server database related packages. Purpose of this repository will be mainly to provide new stable packages to users of old distributions and possibly as a repository with minor fixes which are too minor to get to the official update.

server: database: FACTORY

Packages in this repository will be intended for the next version of openSUSE release. They should be quite stable but generally much less tested then packages from STABLE repository. Version updates can occur and sometimes something can be a little bit broken.

server: database: UNSTABLE

As name suggests, this repository is mainly for testing. It's purpose is to contain highly experimental packages not intended for next openSUSE release. It may contain alpha or beta version. Purpose is to be prepared for possible problems when package became stable and we would like to include it in openSUSE. Or maybe to test some highly experimental settings of existing packages.

Summary

Now you may choose by yourself how stable/new database you want. Well not really now as I created these repositories just today and I didn't put all packages in them yet and as Build Service is currently heavily loaded I think it will take some time to get everything built... But you can be prepared and you can know what you can expect in near future. And you probably also can add repository of your choice already