suse yast2 insists on installing mysql in /var/.

I need the mysql installation to be independent of the OS. Since this may become a large long term installation I need to install all the mysql stuff to a large independent disk.

After a few days of reading everything I could find on Yast2 I am no further along. In a few days its necessary to abandon suse if there is no solution to the problem.
Tried to manually install it.
compile mysql source - fatel error because of a lib it can't find.
make install does't work etc.
gave up on manually doing it as too hard.

Other comments:
Open Suse is a replacment for Red Hat 7.1 - we use it for a business and it has served us well. Every year we evaluate a number of linux system and go away disapointed. We purchased Red Hat 9 server and never got it into production.
The kids at what ever the "hat name" are nasty and their product is unusable.

We need to evaluate Open Suse make it all work before we buy it

Thanks

/var/lib/mysql holds the mysql database(s).

If you just want to have them on an extra disk, just mount it there before you create the databases.

We run rsync to make backup system -
Having odd mounting points defeats the logical system organization of mysql server and data storage.
Mounting the mysql disk at the /var/lib/mysql works, however the system organization and backups need to be logical
The backup scheme is to run as script that call rsync - backs up all clients to server. Alterntely backs up server to two disks alternating between disks each day.
With the backup running at 3 AM and 12:30 PM at noon we only risk the loss of a
1/2 day of work. A third backup is to an off site system.

One thing suse needs to do for yast2 is create a way for users to define where some things need to be located.
such as a yast2 data base "rc" file that a user can create using a templet.