cbourner wrote:I'm loading XAMPP in order to run and learn MySQL, but I'm not sure if I should download MySQL from the Oracle website, or load the version within XAMPP.
Any thoughts or recommendations?
How will you learn MySQL with a standalone MySQL installation? Without webserver, without any CGI Language (like PHP)? If you are well skilled and know how to install Apache, how to install PHP, how to configure Apache, PHP and MySQL in order to run together properly, you definitaly should go for Oracle MySQL plus Apache standalone plus PHP. If all this is new stuff for you, you wont succeed to install everyting proberly, there is quite a lot to know (its not like simply installing office software or a game or so), you should install Xampp instead, as it has everything you need and it usually runs out of the box. The disadvantage of using Xampp is the lack of update tools and exchanging single components, you have to run Xampp as it is. But in mind this is not a real problem, usually there is no need to run updates in a development / learning environment. The most updates are fixing security issues in an online environment, but that is not what Xampp is designed for (and you dont need a production environment).