Fwd: Re: Looking for Feedback: Update mysql from 5.1 to 5.5

[Chuck Short]

I only sent this to ubuntu-server mailing list.

chuck

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: Looking for Feedback: Update mysql from 5.1 to 5.5
Date: 	Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:35:34 -0500
From: 	Chuck Short <chuck.short at canonical.com>
To: 	ubuntu-server at lists.ubuntu.com



On 02/09/2011 08:22 AM, Jamie Strandboge wrote:
>  On Tue, 2011-02-08 at 19:01 -0800, Clint Byrum wrote:
>>  On Tue, 2011-02-08 at 14:22 -0500, Chuck Short wrote:
>>>  Hi,
>>>
>>>  During the Ubuntu Server Team meeting I brought up the agenda item of
>>>  upgrading mysql 5.1 in main to mysql 5.5. There are several reasons to
>>>  do this:
>>>
>>>  * Its faster compared to mysql 5.1 (although I dont have any benchmarks)
>>>  * There are more bug fixes for mysql 5.5.
>>>  * Amazon is using it on the cloud images.
>>>  * Packages are nearly ready to be uploaded.
>>>  * Easier to maintain going forward.
>>>
>  First off, I have no opinion on which is better. The one that will most
>  greatly benefit our users is likely the best choice, especially at this
>  point in the cycle.
>
>>  As excited as I am to get to 5.5 on natty (I have done most of the
>>  initial packaging work to handle the build conversion from automake to
>>  cmake), there seems to be at least one major gotchya in 5.5.8:
>>
>>  http://bugs.mysql.com/59078
>>
>>  They've marked it as "not a bug" .. but its very clear to me that
>>  they've broken ABI compatibility without bumping SONAME. They're even
>>  telling people that this non-bug requires users to re-compile everything
>>  against 5.5 to get things to work.
>>
>>  They've also made libmysqlclient thread safe, eliminating the need for
>>  the separate libmysqlclient_r. The way they've implemented that is also
>>  broken:
>  <snip>
>  Since this is considered 'not a bug' by upstream, it seems unlikely that
>  they are going to fix it on their own. Perhaps the server team or others
>  in the server community can enlighten them.
>
>>  That said, as long as we're ok with having 5.1 and 5.5 in main, the
>>  libraries from 5.1 work *perfectly fine* to access a 5.5 server, so we
>>  can just hold the client libraries back until they figure that mess out.
>  Mysql is very difficult to maintain in stable releases and we have tried
>  very hard in the past to have only one version of mysql supported per
>  release (eg, 5.0 dropped to universe when 5.1 entered into karmic).
>  Having both 5.1 and 5.5 in main is a major red flag for the security
>  team, and the MIR for 5.5 will need to demonstrate why the benefits of
>  this outweigh the support costs.
>
>  Based on the above, I recommend getting 5.5 into universe so people can
>  play with it (being very careful about the client libraries!), then
>  working with Debian and upstream to see what it will take to get 5.5
>  into acceptable shape for the upcoming LTS (and ideally for natty+1).
>
Hi,

Im totally aware of having two versions of MySQL and the maintenance
headaches that would cause in a released version of Ubuntu. What I am
advocating for is replacing MySQL 5.1 with MySQL 5.5 for main.

chuck