Mysql-server fails to start after install in debootstrap (Dapper)

[janne.jokitalo at dnainternet.net]

Hey all,

got a peculiar problem, as I am trying to install 
mysql-server under deboostrapped Dapper. Here's some 
output:

root at jjod600n:/# aptitude install mysql-server
<snip>
Setting up mysql-server-5.0 (5.0.22-0ubuntu6.06) ...
Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld.
Starting MySQL database server: mysqld.
.
<snip many .s>
...failed or took more than 6s.
         Please take a look at the syslog.
/usr/bin/mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' 
failed
error: 'Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket 
'/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)'
Check that mysqld is running and that the socket: 
'/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' exists!

Well, I wanted to check the syslog, as it suggested, but 
alas, it's totally empty! This might be something that's 
supposed to be fixed first. But I'll move on, since I have 
no clues yet...

/etc/mysql/my.cnf looks just as it should (the same as in 
my main config) but the .sock and .pid files just don't 
get created. Running 'mysql_install_db' displays no 
errors, but it just doesn't help. Now here's the weird 
part:

root at jjod600n:/# ps ax | grep mysql
  4750 ?        S      0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe
  4814 ?        Sl     0:10 /usr/sbin/mysqld 
--basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql 
--pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --skip-locking 
--port=3306 --socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
  4815 ?        S      0:00 logger -p daemon.err -t 
mysqld_safe -i -t mysqld
  5076 ?        S+     0:00 grep mysql

...which seems to me that it wants to tell mysqld is 
running, but:

root at jjod600n:/# /etc/init.d/mysql status
MySQL is stopped.

So, is this some issue that only strikes under 
debootstrapped system, that might be missing something? 
And yes, I tried to google, and of course found that many 
had the same error message, but no one provided any 
legitimate answers. :)

Hopefully someone has a clue of what's happening.

-- 
Jaska