Question: I've been looking around for a definitive answer as to how to use LINQ to SQL with mySQL but can't seem to come up with anything. Does anyone have any experience / suggestions using the two together? In particular, I would like to avoid using string SQL statements. 

Cheers

Answer: 
MySQL isn't directly supported by Microsoft's LINQ to SQL provider, but there are several alternative ways you can use LINQ against MySQL.
Take a look at using [LINQ to nHibernate](http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2007/03/16/Linq-for-NHibernate.aspx), or see [here](http://code2code.net/DB_Linq/) for LINQ providers against non-Microsoft databases.
Now (as of 2015) you can use the Connector/NET provided by MySQL. 

<http://dev.mysql.com/doc/connector-net/en/connector-net-tutorials.html>