Reinstalling MySQL on Ubuntu 10.04

I had to reinstall a mysql server on Ubuntu 10.04 and it gave me headaches for hours. At first I couldn't log in for no apparent reason. Then I couldn't login when I started mysql-server with --skip-grant-tables. Then I continued looking and saw some problems with tmp rights which I fixed by:

chown root:root /tmp
chmod 1777 /tmp

After this it still did not work, so I proceeded to look for problems, I purged every single mysql package by running:

aptitude purge mysql-server
aptitude purge mysql-common
aptitude purge mysql-client

I then reinstalled every package but it still did not work. So I took drastic matters. If you are still stuck, please do this at your own risk. First purge everything as displayed above. Then copy this script:

updatedb
locate mysql > tmp.file
FILE=tmp.my

for fileN in $(cat $FILE)
do
echo $fileN
rm -rf $fileN
done

What this script does is:

• updatedb, updates an index file
• locate uses the index file to build a file with all mysql file references
• We open this file, and for every line, which corresponds to a path, echo the filename and delete it.

After saving the script run it as root and reinstall mysql-server with:

aptitude install mysql-server

And you should be ready to go.