Got a ?? how come everytime I try to install mysql on my freebsd 5.2.1 on my labtop it never compiles just dies? cuase I have to set up a mysql Unix/linux web aplication for work soon and I am trying to decide what distrobution I want to use, I love freebsd thats what I usually use but if I cant get it to install on my labtop then I doubt it will install at work properly??? is this an issue or is it just my labtop is mentally challenged?

For a production environment, I would run 4.10, not 5.2.1. Also, trying to setup on a laptop is completely different than a server. The best way would be to see if you could get a spare box at work to try it on. In general MySQL works well on FreeBSD and thousands of sites use it that way (I know, because I used to work on a product that was built on FreeBSD and used a MySQL database).

yea they gave me a few spare boxes to play with, but why shouldnt I use 5.2.1??? basically what I am doing is setting up a dynamic webserver for the intranet

5.2.1 is considered "experimental" and consequently "not entirely stable" (to drop a famous Star Wars quote). FreeBSD 4.10 is considered "stable" and has very little by way of change in it from 4.9, which did not have much change from 4.8. Most of the changes in the last few 4.x releases have simply been bugfixes or some drivers for new hardware, this means that everything is very well tested and has proven to be reliable.

By the way, are you trying to untar the mysql source and compile it that way? If so, is there a reason you haven't used the port of mysql found in the FreeBSD ports tree (/usr/ports)? If you haven't already read the section of the FreeBSD handbook that covers ports, I recommend that you do so now ("ports" in this sense means software that was "ported" to FreeBSD, not network "ports").

yea I was doing it from the ports, i never try to untar things, always leeds to being a pain in the but not having the right files, I am going to try it right now on this server I will let you know if it works on here as aposed to my labtop