> Is it not possible to have one repo file for Fedora regardless of fc27 or fc28.
It might work, for now there is a repo file for each Fedora and EL release, which
in many ways is a good design.
> - Installation of mysql-server (from default repos) still installs mysql-community-server for 8. Is there not a mysql-server for 8?
When MySQL Yum Repos is enabled, commands:
$ yum install mysql-server
$ yum install mysql-community-server
will install MySQL 8, if don't want MySQL 8, disable MySQL Yum Repo by
remove repo file or editing /etc/yum.repos.d/mysql-community.repo
> Just a little confused with all these different files when all i am trying to do is install
MySQL 5.7 or 8. I understand I need to get different repo files depending on 5.7 or 8 but these could be all one file and perhaps even for CentOS and Fedora.
The setup should be simple, install repo/release package matching you distro from:
https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/repo/yum/
Then execute following command to install MySQL server:
$ yum install mysql-community-server
This will install MySQL 8, if you want MySQL 5.7 instead, edit /etc/yum.repos.d/mysql-community.repo before running this command.
> Finally I should be able run mysql_secure_installation to set necessary params such as root pwd et al. regardless of which version of MySQl (and on whichever OS)?
When using MySQL 8 or MySQL 5.7 there is no need to run mysql_secure_installation, install is secure by default any way.
Get initial password from log file /var/log/mysqld.log, login and set new password:
mysql> set password='MyNewPass12.'
All this is documented here:
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql-yum-repo-quick-guide/en/