Encontrei um problema semelhante (com a solução) aqui :
Verifique se há erros nos mysqllogs e syslogs.
Estou tentando instalar o MySQL 5.5 no Ubuntu 12.04, mas estou com este erro:
Setting up mysql-server-5.5 (5.5.24-0ubuntu0.12.04.1) ...
start: Job failed to start
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.5 (--configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server:
mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.5; however:
Package mysql-server-5.5 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.
Errors were encountered while processing:
mysql-server-5.5
mysql-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)