I tried running 'akonadictl start' from the command line, and it fails to start because I haven't installed MySql. Console output is below:

Connecting to deprecated signal QDBusConnectionInterface::serviceOwnerChanged(QString,QString,QString)
[akonadiserver] search paths:  ("/home/cubranic/bin", "/home/cubranic/bin", "/usr/local/sbin", "/usr/local/bin", "/usr/sbin", "/usr/bin", "/sbin", "/bin", "/usr/games", "/usr/sbin", "/usr/local/sbin", "/usr/local/libexec", "/usr/libexec", "/opt/mysql/libexec", "/opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin")
[akonadiserver] Found mysql_install_db:  "/usr/bin/mysql_install_db"
[akonadiserver] Found mysql_upgrade:  "/usr/bin/mysql_upgrade"
"akonadiserver" [out] "Looking for 'mysql' as: /usr/bin/mysql
" 
"akonadiserver" [out] "Looking for 'mysqlcheck' as: /usr/bin/mysqlcheck
" 
"akonadiserver" [out] "Running 'mysqlcheck' with connection arguments: '--port=3306' '--socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' '--socket=/home/cubranic/.local/share/akonadi/db_misc/mysql.socket' 
" 
[akonadiserver] /usr/bin/mysqlcheck: Got error: 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/home/cubranic/.local/share/akonadi/db_misc/mysql.socket' (2) when trying to connect
[akonadiserver] FATAL ERROR: Upgrade failed
[akonadiserver] Database process exited unexpectedly during initial connection!
[akonadiserver] executable: "/usr/sbin/mysqld-akonadi"
[akonadiserver] arguments: ("--defaults-file=/home/cubranic/.local/share/akonadi//mysql.conf", "--datadir=/home/cubranic/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/", "--socket=/home/cubranic/.local/share/akonadi/db_misc/mysql.socket")
[akonadiserver] stdout: ""
[akonadiserver] stderr: ""
[akonadiserver] exit code: 1
[akonadiserver] process error: "Unknown error"
[akonadiserver] "[
[akonadiserver] 0: akonadiserver(_Z11akBacktracev+0x35) [0x8052265]
[akonadiserver] 1: akonadiserver() [0x8052726]
[akonadiserver] 2: [0xb5d400]
[akonadiserver] 3: [0xb5d422]
[akonadiserver] 4: /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(gsignal+0x51) [0x4d1651]
[akonadiserver] 5: /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(abort+0x182) [0x4d4a82]
[akonadiserver] 6: /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4(_Z17qt_message_output9QtMsgTypePKc+0x8c) [0x16d2dc]
[akonadiserver] 7: akonadiserver(_ZN15FileDebugStream9writeDataEPKcx+0xc4) [0x80537a4]
[akonadiserver] 8: /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4(_ZN9QIODevice5writeEPKcx+0x8e) [0x20546e]
[akonadiserver] 9: /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4(+0x10a275) [0x21a275]
[akonadiserver] 10: /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4(_ZN11QTextStreamD1Ev+0x3d) [0x21b78d]
[akonadiserver] 11: akonadiserver(_ZN6QDebugD1Ev+0x43) [0x804dea3]
[akonadiserver] 12: /usr/lib/libakonadiprivate.so.1(_ZN7Akonadi13AkonadiServer25startMysqlDatabaseProcessEv+0x2071) [0xe50cb1]
[akonadiserver] 13: /usr/lib/libakonadiprivate.so.1(_ZN7Akonadi13AkonadiServer20startDatabaseProcessEv+0x263) [0xe53da3]
[akonadiserver] 14: /usr/lib/libakonadiprivate.so.1(_ZN7Akonadi13AkonadiServerC1EP7QObject+0x7d) [0xe5403d]
[akonadiserver] 15: /usr/lib/libakonadiprivate.so.1(_ZN7Akonadi13AkonadiServer8instanceEv+0x58) [0xe554f8]
[akonadiserver] 16: akonadiserver(main+0x374) [0x804d204]
[akonadiserver] 17: /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe6) [0x4bdbd6]
[akonadiserver] 18: akonadiserver() [0x804cdc1]
[akonadiserver] ]
[akonadiserver] "
ProcessControl: Application 'akonadiserver' returned with exit code 255 (Unknown error)

[repeated three more times]