MySQL Reference Manual - 4.0.20

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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 IBM-AIX notes.
Amiga.
BSDI 2.x with the MIT-pthreads package. See section BSD/OS Version 2.x Notes.
BSDI 3.0, 3.1 and 4.x with native threads. See section BSD/OS Version 2.x Notes.
DEC UNIX 4.x with native threads. See section Alpha-DEC-UNIX Notes (Tru64).
FreeBSD 2.x with the MIT-pthreads package. See section FreeBSD Notes.
FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x with native threads. See section FreeBSD Notes.
FreeBSD 4.x with LinuxThreads. See section FreeBSD Notes.
HP-UX 10.20 with the DCE threads or the MIT-pthreads package. See section HP-UX Version 10.20 Notes.
HP-UX 11.x with the native threads. See section HP-UX Version 11.x Notes.
Linux 2.0+ with LinuxThreads 0.7.1+ or glibc 2.0.7+. See section Linux Notes.
Mac OS X. See section Mac OS X Notes.
NetBSD 1.3/1.4 Intel and NetBSD 1.3 Alpha (requires GNU make). See section NetBSD Notes.
Novell NetWare 6.0. See section Installing MySQL on NetWare.
OpenBSD > 2.5 with native threads. OpenBSD < 2.5 with the MIT-pthreads package. See section OpenBSD 2.5 Notes.
OS/2 Warp 3, FixPack 29 and OS/2 Warp 4, FixPack 4. See section OS/2 Notes.
SCO OpenServer with a recent port of the FSU Pthreads package. See section SCO Notes.
SCO UnixWare 7.1.x. See section SCO UnixWare Version 7.1.x Notes.
SGI Irix 6.x with native threads. See section SGI Irix Notes.
Solaris 2.5 and above with native threads on SPARC and x86. See section Solaris Notes.
SunOS 4.x with the MIT-pthreads package. See section Solaris Notes.
Tru64 Unix
Windows 9x, Me, NT, 2000, and XP. See section 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 will be only as stable as the thread library if that library is unstable in the code that is called by MySQL, 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 different CPU than 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. In other words, if the implementation of pthread_mutex_lock() is too anxious to yield CPU time, this will hurt MySQL tremendously. If this issue is not taken care of, adding extra CPUs will actually make MySQL slower.
General filesystem stability and performance.
If your tables are big, 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 successfully run MySQL on the platform in similar configurations. If this number is high, the chances of encountering platform-specific surprises are 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 kernel, and ReiserFS (or any similar Linux distribution) and SPARC with Solaris (2.7-9). FreeBSD comes third, but we really hope it will join the top club once the thread library is improved. We also hope that at some point we will be able to include into the top category all other platforms on which MySQL currently compiles and runs okay, but not quite with the same level of stability and performance. This will require some effort on our part in cooperation with the developers of the operating system 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 The 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 would be different if we considered more factors. In some cases, the reason one OS is better than the other could 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.