If you receive errors like: "This server version doesn't support 'READ WRITE' and 'READ ONLY'. Minimum 5.6.5 is required" with versions of MariaDB that DO support them, this is due to an internal check in mysqli conflicting with a hack in MariaDB to allow replication with oracle mysql.
MariaDB prefixes its server version numbers with "5.5.5-" for example "5.5.5-10.3.7-MariaDB-1:10.3.7+maria~stretch". This is because oracle mysql would interpet the "10" as version 1. Mysql clients aware of MariaDB have been updated to detect and strip this prefix.
However the check for mysqli.begin-transaction sees the 5.5.5 prefix and so fails.
The workaround is to specify a custom version string without the prefix for MariaDB on the command line using the --version option. Then mysqli.begin-transaction functions as expected.