Mysql install and remove issues

Question

I installed mysql on ubuntu server and i dont know what went wrong...it didnt install a mysql root user so i tried to uninstall and start over and now i cant unistall

i tried this

apt-get remove php5-mysql
apt-get remove mysql-server mysql-client
apt-get autoremove

but when i do

ps aux | grep mysql

root      6066  0.0  0.0   1772   540 pts/1    S    03:21   0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe
mysql     7065  0.0  0.6  58936 11900 pts/1    Sl   03:33   0:00 /usr/sbin/mysqld --   basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid -- socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock --port=3306
root      7066  0.0  0.0   2956   688 pts/1    S    03:33   0:00 logger -t mysqld -p daemon.error
root     22804  0.0  0.0   3056   780 pts/1    R+   04:14   0:00 grep mysql

so i killed the processes and then tried to reinstall like this

apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client
sudo mysqladmin -u root -h localhost password 'root'

but i get this

mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
error: 'Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)'

im confused..i keep installing and uninstalling mysql and the same result..any ideas

Answer 1

Try:

sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop
sudo mysqld --skip-grant-tables &
mysql -u root mysql
mysql>UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('PASSWORD') WHERE User='root'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES; exit;
sudo killall mysqld
sudo /etc/init.d/mysql start

Answer 2

I think you should try dpkg-reconfigure mysql-server-5.1 (not sure about exact version of the package, I don't have an Ubuntu box here right now, it depends on Ubuntu version anyway, so you'd better check it using dpkg -l | grep mysql-server). dpkg-reconfigure resets a root password on Debian, I assume its behaviour is the same on Ubuntu.