Forked from MySQL, MariaDB has been known to be a drop-in replacement that brings enhancements and performance optimizations over MySQL. This tutorial will show you how to install MariaDB onto Ubuntu 14.04 in two ways.

Step 1: Download/Install MariaDB

Install from repository

This is straightforward, simply run the following:

apt-get update -y
apt-get install mariadb-server

Manual install from MariaDB mirror (latest version)

Ubuntu server doesn’t ship with a way to add repositories from the command line. The following commands install the MariaDB repository onto your server and install MariaDB:

apt-get install software-properties-common 
apt-key adv --recv-keys -keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 0xcbcb082a1bb943db 
add-apt-repository 'deb http://mirror.jmu.edu/pub/mariadb/repo/10.1/ubuntu trusty main'

If you do not wish to execute the previous commands, you could alternatively create a file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ and populate it with these contents:

deb http://mirror.jmu.edu/pub/mariadb/repo/10.1/ubuntu trusty main 
deb-src http://mirror.jmu.edu/pub/mariadb/repo/10.1/ubuntu trusty main

Next, run the following commands:

apt-get update
apt-get install mariadb-server

Finish the installation by running:

/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

If everything is successful, you can proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Verify that MariaDB is operational

After installation, run mysql -u root -p. Enter your password when prompted. You will see output similar to the following:

Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is XXXX
Server version: 5.5.X


Copyright (c) 2000, 2014, Oracle, Monty Program Ab and others.


Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.


MariaDB [(none)]> 

Congratulations, you have successfully installed MariaDB. If you instead received an error, retry by running the following command:

service mysql start

Enjoy!