MySQL 5.5.8 install notes on OS X

I've made a decision to offload my book writing to a new Macbook Air 11", so that I can keep all of my tools and writing platform up constantly and not worry about re-starting everything once I sit down to write.

So far, so good.  I am working on the Web Flow chapter, and need to get some tables put to a database that is more permenant, so I installed MySQL 5.5.8 and the MySQL Workbench (man, that's a kickin' tool).  A couple of things I had to do to get it running could be useful to others.

First off, don't bother with the .tar.gz installs for MySQL. You're better off getting the 64-bit DMG install, and running the setup.  It sets up all of the permissions for you.  Also, the DMG gives you a PrefPane and a startup item. 

But once you download and install, the prefpane won't launch mysql.  The fix is easy, but not obvious - I found an answer here after a little Googling.  Jay Khimani figured it out - the mysql.startup file doesn't contain the location for mysql or the data directory.

Once I put those two lines in, I could start MySQL again. Don't forget to follow his followup instructions later in the blog entry to configure the startup item properly.

Also of note, whatever problem I had in this blog post back in the summer, the InnoDB engine is the default for this release, which means transactional testing will work just fine without any additional configuration.