How to add sphinx engine to mysql 5.7? On my Ubuntu 18.04 machine using  mysql 5.7 I have installed sphinxsearch 2.2 and now I'd like to add SphinxSE as an engine so that I can connect to it without language-specific medium.
The docs on sphinix is rather old (for MySQL 5.1.x) and involves compiling mysql from source which I shy away from as it may break the existing stuff.
So I'm wondering if there is any straightforward solution for this which does not require source compilation?
Install MariaDB which will run on top of a MySQL-5.7 data directory. This has SphinxSE included in every mariadb-server package on Ubuntu.
You will need to install the plugin:
INSTALL SONAME 'ha_sphinx';

Please check the incompatibility documentation and make a backup before upgrading.
Note there is little effort being put into maintaining SphinxSE (note MariaDB is a few versions behind the latest 2.11, only minor differences looking at code), and that it has been dropped from SphinxSE 3.0 onward.
I agree its a beautiful piece of software, and I know of one large production use of SphinxSE from a former client of mine who's websites are still running and appear to be using it still.