Mac OS X users can install MariaDB via Homebrew

The gist of it is, if you’ve installed Mac OS X and you use Homebrew, you’ll be pleased to note that you’re just a brew install away for getting a working MariaDB. Yes, that’s right, simply do: brew install mariadb and that’s it — you’ll have MariaDB (currently 5.2.6) installed in no time. For further documentation and a step-by-step guide, visit the Knowledgebase article: Building MariaDB on Mac OS X using Homebrew.

Setting up MariaDB repositories for Debian/Ubuntu

If you run Debian or Ubuntu, and want a way to auto-generate a sources.list entry, then you should definitely look at: Setting up Repositories for Ubuntu/Debian. Its very simple: choose a distribution, then a release, then choose what version of MariaDB you would like to track and a mirror of your choice, and voila! it generates the sources.list for you.

LinuxCon Yokohama

Monty Program and SkySQL have decided to be good corporate citizens to the Linux Foundation and have decided to sponsor a few of their LinuxCon events. We will be at LinuxCon Japan, happening June 1-3 2011 in Yokohama, Japan.

It’s my first LinuxCon, so if anyone has tips, please don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments. Cheers!

SkySQL Roadshows – Seoul & Tokyo

A lot is happening in the world of MySQL lately. If you’re in Asia, SkySQL has been organising roadshows. On May 18, there was a captive audience in Singapore, listening to David Axmark (advisor to SkySQL, co-founder of MySQL Ab), Daniel Saito (SkySQL), and Colin Charles (Monty Program). On May 20, there was a huge audience in Manila, and I was totally bummed to have missed out on it.

I’m told there’s going to be an awesome audience tomorrow, May 27, in Seoul, South Korea. Lotte Hotel will be abuzz with all things SkySQL, Monty Program, and MariaDB, and it will feature Kaj Arno and Daniel Saito from SkySQL, and Colin Charles from Monty Program.

Looking for a Few Good Examples

In the #maria IRC channel the other day I fielded a question someone had about a DATETIME column where they wanted to SELECT by the year. The answer (which is probably obvious to many of you) is to use the YEAR() function like so:
select * from t1 where YEAR(d) = 2011;
(The above assumes the table is named “t1” and the DATETIME column is named “d”.)

In my reply I provided a link to the Date and Time Functions section of the AskMonty Knowledgebase, but when I looked at the entry for the YEAR() function, I noticed that the example given (which originated from the file scripts/fill_help_tables.sql which is found in the MySQL and MariaDB source) was not very helpful:
MariaDB [(none)]> …

Tickets to giveaway for Percona Live NYC

We all know that Kurt von Finck is going to give a talk at Percona Live NYC happening May 26 2011. If you want to attend we’ve got three tickets to give away (worth USD$249 each).

This should be the easiest contest ever to enter and win. Just go to the Knowledgebase, create an account and write one new article, longer than 2 paragraphs. Once you’re done, send a quick email to community@montyprogram.com with a link to the article, and if there is no duplicate content already on the Knowledgebase, you’ll get your ticket to Percona Live NYC.

Setting up a new MariaDB Buildbot host

Yesterday I set up a new machine for our MariaDB Buildbot. This is quite an important build host for us, it runs more than 20 different builds for each push into our most important trees, and is the host that builds most of our release packages. So quite a workhorse! It is a pretty fast machine, with 5 SSD disks, 48GB of RAM and 2 x quad-core Intel Xeon E5420.

This is a replacement for the previous machine serving the same builds. The previous machine was also nice, at least on paper, with no less than 24 cores. …

State of MariaDB Keynote at the O’Reilly MySQL Conference & Expo 2011

Monty gave a keynote on Wednesday morning, on the State of MariaDB. He’s also just posted his thoughts and updates from the conference. Check out his slide deck embedded blow, and don’t forget you can also watch the video (running time ~30 minutes).