mariadb-10.1 (10.1.20-1) unstable; urgency=low MariaDB is now the default MySQL variant in Debian, at version 10.1. The Stretch release introduces a new mechanism for switching the default variant, using metapackages created from the 'mysql-defaults' source package. For example, installing the metapackage 'default-mysql-server' will install 'mariadb-server-10.1'. Users who had 'mysql-server-5.5' or 'mysql-server-5.6' will have it removed and replaced by the MariaDB equivalent. Similarly, installing 'default-mysql-client' will install 'mariadb-client-10.1'. Note that the database binary data file formats are not backwards compatible, so once you have upgraded to MariaDB 10.1 you will not be able to switch back to any previous version of MariaDB or MySQL unless you have a proper database dump. Therefore, before upgrading, please make backups of all important databases with an appropriate tool such as 'mysqldump'. The 'virtual-mysql-*' and 'default-mysql-*' packages will continue to exist. MySQL continues to be maintained in Debian, in the unstable release. See the page https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/MySQL more information about the mysql-related software available in Debian. -- Otto Kekäläinen Tue, 14 Mar 2017 16:21:58 +0200