title: Why is import of SQL so slow?
body: <p>I have an SQL file containing two tables with around 600,000 rows altogether. Yesterday, I tried to import the file into my MySQL database on Fedora 16, and it took over 2 hours to import the file. On my Windows PC it took 7 minutes. My Linux and Windows machines have exactly the same hardware. A couple of my friends tried it too, and they had a similar experience.</p>
  
  <p>The command we were using was: <code>mysql -u root database_name &lt; sql_file.sql</code>.</p>
  
  <p>Why is there such a difference in speed?</p>