Ultimately, I want to learn MariaDB. Iâve found that there are hundreds more resources for learning MySQL than for MariaDB. My assumption is that everything I learn from a MySQL book will also apply to MariaDB since itâs a drop-in replacement for MySQL.
For all practical purposes, MariaDB is a binary drop in replacement of the same MySQL version (for example MySQL 5.1 -> MariaDB 5.1, MariaDB 5.2 & MariaDB 5.3 are compatible. MySQL 5.5 will be compatible with MariaDB 5.5).
Will I be able to use MySQL books to prepare for learning MariaDB or will they be useless to me if what I really want to learn is MariaDB?
If you take care about the few differences and incompatibilities (very few, mariadb starts from the same codebase than MySQL), you should have no problem using a resources from one DB and applying them to the other DB.
Even more so if you are mostly focusing in SQL syntax.
You don’t really need to care about the differences, unless you are a very advanced user. MariaDB can replace MySQL with every application I know. Some MySQL 5.6 optimizations are not in MariaDB, but much more MariaDB optimizations are not in MySQL.