Figure 2.1 New MySQL Windows installation.
The directory structure for both Linux and Windows installations is almost the same.File Contents
Before continuing, examine what you have.
The ChangeLog is a file containing all the changes and fixes for that particular release.
INSTALL-BINARY is an information file explaining how to install MySQL and release notes specific to
the platform that is using this binary distribution.
PUBLIC is the copyright and right to use license.
The README file contains useful information on setting up your MySQL server.
The support-files directory contains files to aid in configuring your MySQL server. It also contains a
specification file that explains why TcX created MySQL.
The bin directory contains all the MySQL commands, such as mysqladmin, mysqlaccess, and
several other important commands. You will study this in depth in later chapters. In the Windows
version, there are a couple of extra commands. The MySQLManager (see Figure 2.2) is the GUI
(graphical user interface) of MySQL. It shows the current databases and table structure and allows the
user to run queries, all within a friendly graphical environment. As with any GUI, some power has been
sacrificed for looks. Not all of the features available from the command line are represented. GUIs are
nice, but to know the tool, you must know how to use the command line.
Figure 2.2 MySQLManager.
The configure file contains a script that sets up the grant tables in your MySQL server.
The data directory is where all the data for the databases is stored. Each database has its
corresponding directory, as well as files that store the data, configure the tables, and provide a way to
access the data stored in the files.