This new series of lessons explain the basic operational concepts of MySQL database – from installation all the way to basic administration. We will use the Windows platform as our main operating system. However, you are free to use any other Windows version you like, even a Linux based such as Ubuntu or Fedora. The only difference among Windows and Linux operating systems is on the installation steps. After the completion of the installation, the commands and the administrative tasks work exactly the same on both operating system platforms.

The first thing we need to do is to get to the official location of MySQL and download the latest version of the Community server edition. This is the free version of MySQL database. On the download section ( http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/) you can choose the operating system on which you will be installing MySQL. In our case, we will be downloading the 32 bit version for Windows as the following figure shows.