Right now the file /etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-client.cnf is just an
empty placeholder and mariadb-client would work without depending on
mariadb-common as long as no user adds anything to that config file.
But it would be quite confusing for the user if there is a file
/etc/mysql/mariadb.conf.d/50-client.cnf which they would modify, only
to later discover that those modifications did not have any effect.
I also see that mysql-8.0 added quite a few conflicts on mariadb-*. In
mysql-5.7 only the server conflicted with the mariadb equivalent.
Now in 8.0 there is among others:
Package: mysql-client-core-8.0
Architecture: any
Depends: ${misc:Depends}, ${shlibs:Depends}
Provides: virtual-mysql-client-core
Conflicts: mariadb-client-10.1,
mariadb-client-10.3,
mariadb-client-core-10.1,
mariadb-client-core-10.3,
mysql-client-5.7,
mysql-client-core-5.7,
virtual-mysql-client-core
Package: mysql-client-8.0
Architecture: any
Depends: debianutils (>=1.6),
mysql-client-core-8.0,
mysql-common (>= 5.5),
${misc:Depends},
${shlibs:Depends}
Provides: virtual-mysql-client
Conflicts: mariadb-client-10.1,
mariadb-client-10.3,
mysql-client-5.7,
virtual-mysql-client
So having any kind of co-installability for even the clients does not
seem possible right now.
