MySQL on Slackware

Many of us who have installed Slackware on our machines in the past few years have noticed something annoying on the first boot: the MySQL service fails to start!!

In response to this, I would like to offer this simple tutorial. Right now I am doing this blindly, meaning I don't have a fresh install to work with. Please bear with me if you notice some errors in the tutorial, and please tell me about them!

1. Log in as root: # su -
2. Make sure the mysql package is installed. You can do this by running pkgtool and selecting the view option. Hit n and it will take you to the packages in the list that begin with n. MySQL should be right above the n packages. If you don't have mysql already installed, you can download it from http://www.linuxpackages.net/ or wherever you'd like. Once you have a copy of it, install it by using the installpkg mysql......tgz command
3. Setup the databases: # mysql_install_db
4. Apply the proper permissions: # chown -R mysql.mysql /var/lib/mysql
5. Start the database: # mysqld_safe &
6. Setup the root user:

# mysqladmin -u root password 'newpassword'
# mysqladmin -p -u root -h localhost password 'newpassword'

Finally, test your installation:

# mysql -p

That should do it! Please comment if you notice any errors with this posting.