I should have looked before I wrote my last post on MySQL because there is an updated version of the MySQL package for OS X 10.5. (And it has been available for quite a while too.) I undid everything I had done previously to get MySQL working before and I downloaded and installed the 64-bit version of this new package. I even took myself out of the wheel group.

After installing the updated package I found that I could not start MySQL from the command line or the prefpane. I tried adding myself back to the wheel group but I still couldn't start MySQL. To fix the problem I still had to follow the recommendation to change the ownership of /usr/local/mysql/data that I originally found here. Then I removed myself from the wheel group and I could still start and stop MySQL from both the command line and the prefpane. I'm not sure that changing the permissions is either really necessary or the best solution to the problem but it works.

Then I tried restarting the system to see if the permissions on /usr/local/mysql/data/<computer name>.local.err were getting reset like they were before. They weren't, so that's one less problem to deal with.

Finally I tried enabling automatically starting MySQL on system start and that works now even if your user is not in the wheel group.

So now (almost) everything in the MySQL package for OS X 10.5 works out of the box.

In an earlier post I explored how to install MySQL from a package on OS X Leopard, but I left unsolved the problem of how to make MySQL start automatically on system startup. This morning while reading Mac OS X Hints a post titled “10.5: Join 'wheel' group as possible fix for system issues” caught my eye and started me thinking that perhaps it might also be a solution for the MySQL auto-start problem I had been unable to solve.

First I had to find a way to add myself to the wheel group so followed a link from that hint to another hint titled “10.5: Manage users and groups using a GUI tool“*. From there I downloaded and installed Apple's Server Admin Tools for 10.5. These tools are not meant to be used with the desktop version of OS X, but the Workgroup Manager tool works and can be used add a user to a group. I followed the steps described and added myself to the wheel group. It took me a couple of minutes to find the wheel group because the Workgroup Manager displays the groups' long names instead of their short names. In the case of the wheel group the long name is System Group.

After adding myself to the wheel group I opened the MySQL prefpane in System Preferences and checked “Automatically Start MySQL Server on Startup”. Then I shut down and restarted my MacBook. When it finished booting I logged in and MySQL was already running. Problem solved!

*Mac OS X Hints offers the following warning for this hint:

Warning: You should not play around with these settings if you don't know what you're doing. It is possible to break certain parts of the operating system, or to render it unusable.

You should definitely not add users to the wheel group unless you are reasonably confident that you know what you are doing and what the security implications are.

Apple made a minor but welcome improvement to Stacks with the 10.5.2 upgrade. You can now change the stack icon on the toolbar to a folder icon. So now instead of seeing this:

I see this:

I am much happier seeing the Application folder as my Application stack icon than I was seeing the 1Password icon. To change your Stacks icon display, right-click on the stack you want to change and select Display as: Folder. If you don't like it then change it back to Display as: Stack to see 1Password, Address Book, Adium or whatever icon is first in your Applications folder.

I installed the OS X 10.5.2 upgrade yesterday. Shortly after installing it I turned 802.11n back on in my D-Link DIR-655. It is much more stable now, at least so far. In thirty-six hours I have had just one dropped connection. Before the 10.5.2 upgrade I was experiencing dropped connections every few minutes. Unfortunately the 10.5.2 upgrade has caused WiFi problems for many users. It would be easy to blame other manufacturers like D-Link because 802.11n is still draft but many of the problems are with either older 802.11g equipment or with Apple's own Airport Extreme product. And WiFi problems aren't the only problems being reported with 10.5.2. I consider myself lucky to have had a problem free upgrade.