Eu baixei os seguintes arquivos do Oracle.com:
MySQL-server-5.5.28-1.linux2.6.i386.rpm<br/>
MySQL-client-5.5.28-1.linux2.6.i386.rpm<br/>
MySQL-shared-5.5.28-1.linux2.6.i386.rpm<br/>
então com o comando "alien -i" instalando pacotes rpm e ao iniciar o mysql recebo o seguinte erro:
Starting MySQL<br/>
.... * The server quit without updating PID file (/var/lib/mysql/omid-desktop.pid).
log de erros:
121117 13:21:30 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql
121117 13:21:30 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled.
/usr/sbin/mysqld: Table 'mysql.plugin' doesn't exist
121117 13:21:30 [ERROR] Can't open the mysql.plugin table. Please run mysql_upgrade to create it.
121117 13:21:30 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled
121117 13:21:30 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use InnoDB's own implementation
121117 13:21:30 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.3
121117 13:21:30 InnoDB: Using Linux native AIO
121117 13:21:30 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M
121117 13:21:30 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
121117 13:21:30 InnoDB: highest supported file format is Barracuda.
121117 13:21:30 InnoDB: Waiting for the background threads to start
121117 13:21:31 InnoDB: 1.1.8 started; log sequence number 1595675
121117 13:21:31 [Note] Recovering after a crash using mysql-bin
121117 13:21:31 [Note] Starting crash recovery...
121117 13:21:31 [Note] Crash recovery finished.
121117 13:21:31 [Note] Server hostname (bind-address): '0.0.0.0'; port: 3306
121117 13:21:31 [Note] - '0.0.0.0' resolves to '0.0.0.0';
121117 13:21:31 [Note] Server socket created on IP: '0.0.0.0'.
121117 13:21:31 [ERROR] Fatal error: Can't open and lock privilege tables: Table 'mysql.host' doesn't exist
121117 13:21:31 mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /var/lib/mysql/omid-desktop.pid ended
121117 13:25:38 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql
121117 13:25:38 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled.
/usr/sbin/mysqld: Table 'mysql.plugin' doesn't exist
121117 13:25:38 [ERROR] Can't open the mysql.plugin table. Please run mysql_upgrade to create it.
121117 13:25:38 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled
121117 13:25:38 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use InnoDB's own implementation
121117 13:25:38 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.3
121117 13:25:38 InnoDB: Using Linux native AIO
121117 13:25:38 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M
121117 13:25:38 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
121117 13:25:38 InnoDB: highest supported file format is Barracuda.
121117 13:25:38 InnoDB: Waiting for the background threads to start
121117 13:25:39 InnoDB: 1.1.8 started; log sequence number 1595675
/usr/sbin/mysqld: Too many arguments (first extra is 'start').
Use --verbose --help to get a list of available options
121117 13:25:39 [ERROR] Aborting
121117 13:25:39 InnoDB: Starting shutdown...
121117 13:25:40 InnoDB: Shutdown completed; log sequence number 1595675
121117 13:25:40 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Shutdown complete
A conversão entre formatos de pacotes destinados a distribuições diferentes não é um processo perfeito (e nunca será), você realmente deve tentar usar pacotes do Ubuntu (ou pelo menos do Debian). Às vezes, se você precisar de uma versão mais recente do que a existente nos repositórios do Ubuntu, você poderá encontrá-la no Debian testes , instáveis ou até mesmo séries experimentais.
Mas a primeira coisa que eu tentarei é:
sudo chown -R mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql