i cant get mysql to install on slackware at all, i have downloaded the latest binarys, and ran the ./configure script and it says i dont need to make or make install it, but whan i try to start it, with safe_mysql & it just says mysql ended. i cant work out whats wrong, is there an easier way to upgrade the mysql that comes with slackware 3.45 i think it is to mysql 4.0.13. anyone else had simialar problems?

So you pretty much just:
download the latest tarball;
untar it to:
/usr/local
Make the symlink:
ln -sf /usr/local/mysql-version-platform /usr/local/mysql
Enter the new directory:
cd /usr/local/mysql
And type:
scripts/mysql_install_db
You then need to chown and chmod the files (btw, at this point I couldn't remember exactly, so I just pulled up the INSTALL-BINARY file from my /usr/local/mysql directory)
So:
chown -R root .
chown -R mysql data
chgrp -R mysql .
bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

If you want to (I did) you can have this startup on reboot, several ways, I:
copy support-files/mysql.server to /etc/rc.d/ and then edit /etc/rc.d/rc.local to have a line:
/etc/rc.d/mysql.server start
And that's pretty much it. Don't forget to set a root password.

HTH

Cool

will have another bash later... liking the whole compactness of slack as a whole and dont really want to have to go back to dead rat

Cool, if you have an older database I don't think it's a problem carrying it over, however you might find me to be completely wrong:
http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/Upgrading-from-3.23.html
It doesn't look too bad, assuming you have a decent idea of how to work with mysql. If you don't have any databases (or very few and/or replaceable ones) then simply remove the one that came with slack (use pkgtool or removepkg) and do the regular install as described above (or in the INSTALL-BINARY in the mysql directory).



Cool

thanks mate your a star, works great, apart from i want it to ask for the root password before u can acess it, i chenged the encripted password on the user options bit but it doesnt ask for the p/w before you can see the DB's