When setting up a LEMP stack (Linux, Nginx, MySQL, PHP), the database driver choice fundamentally impacts performance and functionality. The two main options are:

• php-mysql: The traditional libmysqlclient-based driver
• php-mysqlnd (MySQL Native Driver): PHP's optimized replacement

Since PHP 5.4, mysqlnd became the recommended choice because:

// Memory efficiency example
$result = mysqli_query($link, "SELECT * FROM large_table");

// With mysqlnd:
memory_get_peak_usage(); // Shows ~30% less memory usage

// Performance metrics:
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    // mysqlnd shows 15-20% faster iteration
}

Modern PHP versions (7.0+) have mysqlnd as the default driver. For legacy systems:

# Ubuntu/Debian installation commands:
sudo apt-get install php-mysqlnd  # Recommended
sudo apt-get install php-mysql    # Legacy option

A benchmark script comparing 10,000 queries:

<?php
$start = microtime(true);
$link = mysqli_connect("localhost", "user", "password", "test_db");

for ($i = 0; $i < 10000; $i++) {
    $result = mysqli_query($link, "SELECT id FROM sample WHERE id = " . $i);
    mysqli_free_result($result);
}

echo "Execution time: " . (microtime(true) - $start) . " seconds";
?>

Typical results show mysqlnd completing 18-22% faster than the traditional driver.

When switching from php-mysql to mysqlnd:

1. Test all prepared statements
2. Verify LONGTEXT/LONGBLOB handling
3. Check any custom mysql_* function usage
4. Update any connection pooling configurations

For optimal mysqlnd performance in php.ini:

mysqlnd.collect_statistics = On
mysqlnd.collect_memory_statistics = On
mysqlnd.net_cmd_buffer_size = 2048

// Memory efficiency example with mysqlnd
$result = $mysqli->query("SELECT * FROM large_table");
// Data stays on PHP side, no duplicate memory allocation

sudo apt-get install php-mysqlnd
sudo systemctl restart php-fpm

php -i | grep mysqlnd
# Should show: mysqlnd support => enabled

// Test script
$start = microtime(true);
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "user", "password", "testdb");
$result = $mysqli->query("SELECT * FROM test_table");
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {}
echo "Time: ".(microtime(true)-$start);

sudo apt-get --purge remove php-mysql
sudo apt-get install php-mysqlnd
sudo systemctl restart php-fpm

php -i | grep mysqlnd.compression