emerge -DavuN mariadb
Yep. That’s it. Portage will remove mysql and perform a drop-in replacement of mariadb. Everything just works. Between mariadb’s API decisions and the gentoo team’s work on portage, that was impossibly collaborative and well-thought-out. THANKS ALL!
Especially to this guy – he made a billion bucks and keeps doing his amazing things!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Widenius