NOTE: MariaDB is installed without root password, it is recommended to set the root password with the following command as soon as possible: # mysql_secure_installation press enter at each question except the new root password. The initscript used to start mysql has been reverted to use the one shipped by MariaDB. This means the following changes: * The generation of the initial system mysql database is now done when mysql is started from the initscript and only if the /var/lib/mysql/mysql directory is empty (mysql_install_db). Previousely this was quite hidden and silently done at (rpm) install time. As a consequence to this change you may have to perform some manual tasks to upgrade the mysql system database and such. So, doing something like this might help you: systemctl stop mysqld.service TMPDIR=/var/tmp mysql_install_db mysql_upgrade --skip-write-binlog The cluster functionalities (ndb) has been deactivated and will be removed in future mysql versions. Oracle has a new product named mysql-cluster that replaces the cluster functionalities. The mysql-common-core package ships with a default /etc/my.cnf file that is based on the my-medium.cnf file that comes with the source code. If you need time zone data, run the following command after install: mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mysql -D mysql