– To use the bitwise solution you need a view of 2 to the power 25.
– the following solution is derived from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9751318/creating-a-numbers-table-in-mysql
– the following solution ran in 43.8 seconds with the primary key, without it 4.56 seconds.

-- create a view that has 2 to the power 25 minus 1

-- 2 ^ 1
CREATE or replace VIEW `two_to_the_power_01_minus_1` AS select 0 AS `n` union all select 1 AS `1`;

-- 2 ^ 2
CREATE or replace VIEW `two_to_the_power_02_minus_1` 
AS select
   ((`hi`.`n` << 1) | `lo`.`n`) AS `n`
from (`two_to_the_power_01_minus_1` `lo` join `two_to_the_power_01_minus_1` `hi`) ;

-- 2 ^ 4
CREATE or replace VIEW `two_to_the_power_04_minus_1` 
AS select
   ((`hi`.`n` << 2 ) | `lo`.`n`) AS `n`
from (`two_to_the_power_02_minus_1` `lo` join `two_to_the_power_02_minus_1` `hi`) ;

-- 2 ^ 8
CREATE or replace VIEW `two_to_the_power_08_minus_1` 
AS select
   ((`hi`.`n` << 4 ) | `lo`.`n`) AS `n`
from (`two_to_the_power_04_minus_1` `lo` join `two_to_the_power_04_minus_1` `hi`) ;

-- 2 ^ 12
CREATE or replace VIEW `two_to_the_power_12_minus_1` 
AS select
   ((`hi`.`n` << 8 ) | `lo`.`n`) AS `n`
from (`two_to_the_power_08_minus_1` `lo` join `two_to_the_power_04_minus_1` `hi`) ;

-- 2 ^ 13
CREATE or replace VIEW `two_to_the_power_13_minus_1`
AS select
   ((`hi`.`n` << 1) | `lo`.`n`) AS `n`
from (`two_to_the_power_01_minus_1` `lo` join `two_to_the_power_12_minus_1` `hi`);



-- create a table to store the interim results for speed of retrieval
drop table if exists numbers_2_to_the_power_13_minus_1;

create table `numbers_2_to_the_power_13_minus_1` (
  `i` int(11) unsigned
) ENGINE=myisam DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 ;

-- faster 2 ^ 13
insert into numbers_2_to_the_power_13_minus_1( i )
select n from `two_to_the_power_13_minus_1` ;

-- faster 2 ^ 12
CREATE or replace view `numbers_2_to_the_power_12_minus_1`
AS select
   `numbers_2_to_the_power_13_minus_1`.`i` AS `i`
from `numbers_2_to_the_power_13_minus_1`
where (`numbers_2_to_the_power_13_minus_1`.`i` < (1 << 12));

-- faster 2 ^ 25
CREATE or replace VIEW `numbers_2_to_the_power_25_minus_1`
AS select
   ((`hi`.`i` << 12) | `lo`.`i`) AS `i`
from (`numbers_2_to_the_power_12_minus_1` `lo` join `numbers_2_to_the_power_13_minus_1` `hi`);

-- create table for results

drop table if exists numbers ;

create table `numbers` (
  `i` int(11) signed 
  , primary key(`i`)
) ENGINE=myisam DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

-- insert the numbers
insert into numbers(i)
select i from numbers_2_to_the_power_25_minus_1
where i <= 20000000 ;

drop view if exists numbers_2_to_the_power_25_minus_1 ;
drop view if exists numbers_2_to_the_power_12_minus_1 ;
drop table if exists numbers_2_to_the_power_13_minus_1 ;
drop view if exists two_to_the_power_13_minus_1 ;
drop view if exists two_to_the_power_12_minus_1 ;
drop view if exists two_to_the_power_08_minus_1 ;
drop view if exists two_to_the_power_04_minus_1 ;
drop view if exists two_to_the_power_02_minus_1 ;
drop view if exists two_to_the_power_01_minus_1 ;