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[[http://askmonty.org/wiki/MariaDB:Download:MariaDB_5.1.44|Download]] | **Release Notes** | [[mariadb-5144-changelog|Changelog]]
**Release date:** 24 Mar 2010
See the [[mariadb-5144-changelog|MariaDB 5.1.44 Changelog]] for a more detailed
list of the changes in this release.
In most respects MariaDB will work exactly as MySQL: all commands, interfaces,
libraries and APIs that exist in MySQL also exist in MariaDB.
In addition to the differences noted in previous
[[release-notes|release notes]] and [[changelogs]], the main differences
between MariaDB and MySQL are:
<<toc>>
== Includes MySQL 5.1.44
For MariaDB 5.1.44 we have merged in all of the upstream changes from MySQL
5.1.43 and 5.1.44. The MySQL
[[http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/news-5-1-43.html|5.1.43]] and
[[http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/news-5-1-44.html|5.1.44]] release
notes have details of what changes were made upstream by MySQL since 5.1.42.
== Performance Improvements
While preparing for MariaDB 5.1.44 we were made aware of a performance problem
with Maria internal temporary tables, compared to MyISAM temporary tables
(traditionally used by MySQL). The problem arose because the Maria storage
engine has an 8K page size, compared to MyISAM's 1K. With this difference,
compacted keys were slower in Maria as we had to search through more data to
find a key in each page. After fixing it to use static length keys for most
cases, the speed is now in most cases equal or better than MyISAM. This will be
permanently fixed for all cases when we add a key directory to Maria storage
engine pages.
== Fewer warnings and bugs
Like we did with our previous releases, various improvements were made in
MariaDB 5.1.44 in our desire to fix warnings and eliminate bugs.
In MariaDB 5.1.44 these included a fix for lpbug:534626: "MyISAM table
created in MariaDB not readable by MySQL". With this fix, tables created
without <<fixed>>CHECKSUM=1<</fixed>> will be readable by MySQL. We have sent a
patch to Oracle to fix the issue and allow MySQL to read all MyISAM tables with
<<fixed>>CHECKSUM=1<</fixed>>.
Another improvement we made was to not take a mutex when accessing compiled-in
plugin code. (The fewer mutexes you take, the better off you are.)
MariaDB 5.1.44 also includes fixes for the following bugs: mybug:44987,
lpbug:524025, lpbug:524679, lpbug:523593, lpbug:516148, lpbug:520243, and
others. See the [[mariadb-5144-changelog|5.1.44 Changelog]] for a detailed list
of the various bugs and warnings that were fixed.
== Test Suite Improvements
We have continued to improve our test suite in MariaDB 5.1.44 to cover
additional cases and to eliminate false positives. These included things like
adding the ability to send extra commands to the server to setup the
environment prior to starting tests, adding new benchmark tests, and fixing
some tests that were failing because of time zone issues.
