MySQL Bugs: #100400: setting lower_case_table_names=1 using debconf prior to installation fails

Bug #100400	setting lower_case_table_names=1 using debconf prior to installation fails
Submitted:	31 Jul 2020 13:47	Modified:	20 Nov 2020 10:25
Reporter:	Brian Sinicki	Email Updates:
Status:	Not a Bug	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server	Severity:	S3 (Non-critical)
Version:	8.0.21	OS:	Ubuntu (Server 20.04.3)
Assigned to:		CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
using the command : sudo debconf-set-selections <<< "mysql-server mysql-server/lowercase-table-names select Enabled" to specify lower_case_table_names=1 prior to installation using apt fails to deliver. The server installs with lower_case_table_names=0.

How to repeat:
Fresh install of Ubuntu 20 Server LTS, try to install MySQL.

Hi Mr. Sinicki,

Thank you for your bug report.

However, this is not a bug. 

First of all, if Ubuntu's command does not accept your setting, you should report it to Ubuntu, not to us.

Second, as you can read in our manual, paragraph 5.1.8, on Linux, value of this variable is always forced to be zero.

Not a bug.

Perhaps the verification team needs to read the very documentation they recommend:

> On Linux, a value of 2 is not supported; the server forces the value to 0 instead. 

Setting to `1` (Enabled) should be supported by Oracle's provided packages as it was before *and* it works with 8.0.21 and 8.0.22 if one manually re-initializes the install.

Or has Oracle redefined 'Enabled' to mean `2` for Linux packages despite the fact that is intentionally ignored -- and therefore equivalent to 'Disabled'.

That's was my opinion as well, but I gave up on this because I have better things to do than argue with incompetence... And I found a horribly hackish work-around that involves installing MySQL, deleting some stuff, shuffling the data folder around, and then reinstalling. If the stars align and you do it all correctly, you can manage to get around the problem.

Read a paragraph in the sub-chapter 2.11.4 of our Reference Manual.