MariaDB is now officially our default implementation of MySQL. MariaDB is almost a drop in replacement, so an upgrade should be possible with minimum hassle. However, due to remaining compatibility concerns, an automatic replace is not done.
It is recommended for all users to upgrade. MySQL will be dropped from the repositories to the AUR in a month.
Users who want to switch will need to install mariadb, libmariadbclient or mariadb-clients and execute mysql_upgrade in order to migrate their systems.
Migration example:
# systemctl stop mysqld
# pacman -S mariadb libmariadbclient mariadb-clients
# systemctl start mysqld
# mysql_upgrade -p
percona-server is another MySQL fork available in [community]. It should be closer to Oracle MySQL Enterprise, but is missing the new features included in MariaDB.
Together with mysql 5.5.30-7 in [extra], all packages depending on it have been rebuilt against their MariaDB counterparts. Other package maintainers should move their dependencies to the MariaDB packages.
More information can be found on our mailing list.