I’ve spent an hour wrestling with MySQL on OS X, which is 58 minutes too many. MySQL is a pretty tight program – it’s up and running in seconds on Windows. RedHat takes about the same amount of time if you use an RPM.

And I wish I could say this was the first time something like this has happened. When it comes to simple GUI apps, installs are fabulous on a Mac. More often than not you just drag a single icon into your Applications folder, or just run the application wherever you feel like it. Uninstalling is basically as easy as dropping the app in the trash (and cleaning out preference files if you’re picky). Try that with a compiled Linux app like MySQL.

Fink makes things slightly easier (it’s currently reinstalling MySQL for me in the background) but if you want the latest releases of less popular Linux software, good luck.

Even if I’m just ignorant and don’t know how to make things work behind the scenes, I know it could be better. I’d take Apple more seriously if they were able to apply the Apple touch to this problem. Just make it work, like most everything else works.