JoeAudette.com

Well I uninstalled MySQL 4.1.1 from  my GNU/Linux box and installed the 5.0.0 alpha version with support for stored procedures. The manual that came with it didn't have any info on how to create stored procedures, but the one on the MySQL site does have it so it didn't take me long to create a proc to do the insert on my test page. The ADO.NET provider from ByteFX has a class named MySqlHelper which is similar to the Microsoft Application blocks SqlHelper class but with only the simplest overloads.  Currently it doesn't seem to support passing params to a stored procedure as such, you can only pass a command string so to call a stored procedure the syntax is like:

“CALL usp_MyProc('value', 'value')“

At least it puts most of the SQL code in the database which is better than using a bunch of dynamic sql generated in the .NET code.  I'm sure they will be adding overloads to support stored procedures in the future, this is beta code and the database itself is alpha code.  It all works well enough to get me motivated in moving forward with MySQL in my new development.

I just got MySQL 4.1.1 alpha running on my Fedora Core GNU/Linux box. It seems stable and I believe it has support for stored procedures. My test page which was previously hitting MySQL 4.0.18 on a Windows box is now getting data from the Fedora box. Once I got the database setup, I changed the connection string and voila it worked.

I had a few difficulties installing MySQL 4.1.1 on Fedora there were dependency issues that I solved by uninstalling MySQL 3.23 and a few other supporting packages. The RPM gave me good error messages letting me know which dependencies were preventing the install and I was able to track down the offending packages using the WebMin tool which is an awesome distribution neutral browser based GNU/Linux administration tool. I used WebMin to uninstall the uneeded packages causing the dependency problem.

Well it didn't take long to get a page displaying and adding records to a MySQL database. You can view my sample page here. For now its using MySQL running on Windows but my next step will be to use a GNU/Linux server. Once the db is ready on the GNU/Linux box, it should just be a matter of changing the connection string.

I am very excited after a little playing around with MySQL, the free for most purposes open source database. I'm embarking on the study of GNU/Linux, Apache Web Server, MySQL, PHP or is it Perl?, also known as LAMP. I knew that MySQL was the deal on GNU/Linux but what surprised and delighted me was the MySql for Windows!  Microsoft SQL Server is an awesome db but its very expensive for the little guy. Sure you can use Microsoft Data Engine and thats pretty cool but MySQL is getting better all the time and it turns out there is already good open source code out there to help you hookup .NET Applications with a MySQL backend. That backend could run on Windows but you might as well setup a GNU/Linux box for the db server. Why not? I'm working on a little proof of concept project right now that may grow into a port of the Rainbow Portal backend to MySQL. I'm thinking the common scenario would be the Windows version of MySQL running on a Windows WEb Server, but in a 2 or more server arangement, its a no brainer to put MySQL on its own GNU/Linux box.  This site runs on the Rainbow Portal Framework and is written in C#. The big things missing in the current release of MySQL (4.0.18) are support for stored procedures and triggers, but these are slated for versions 5.0 and 5.1 respectively. When these features become available, MySQL will be a real contender for .NET application backends.

I blew away my mandrake 9.2 intallation to try the re-branded fedora distribution sponsored by Red Hat.  Since one of my near term goals is to learn how and practice compiling the kernel a few times, I opted to go with the test version with the latest 2.6 kernel.  It installed without a hitch, in fact a very elegent install with nice progress widgets and good looking screens.  My Soundblaster 16 sound card isn't working which is surpising since it worked fine under Mandrake. Perhaps its driver is one that needs to be compiled with or in the kernel and its not in the default binaries.  Still reading my linux administration book every chance I get.  I'm finally on the chapter that covers compiling the kernel so hopefully I'll give it try soon.