Then I get: [ERROR] Fatal error: Can't change to run as user 'mysql' ; Please check that the user exists! Workaround: cd /var/lib/mysql sudo adduser mysql sudo chown mysql:mysql -R /var/lib/mysql Then I get: [Warning] Using unique option prefix myisam-recover instead of myisam-recover-options is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Please use the full name instead. After that I give up with next error: 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled. mysqld: Table 'mysql.plugin' doesn't exist 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [ERROR] Can't open the mysql.plugin table. Please run mysql_upgrade to create it. 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: Using atomics to ref count buffer pool pages 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.8 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: Using Linux native AIO 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: Using CPU crc32 instructions 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: Highest supported file format is Barracuda. 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: 128 rollback segment(s) are active. 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for purge to start 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: 5.6.17 started; log sequence number 1600627 mysqld: Too many arguments (first extra is 'start'). Use --verbose --help to get a list of available options 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [ERROR] Aborting 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Binlog end 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'partition' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'BLACKHOLE' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_SYS_DATAFILES' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_SYS_TABLESPACES' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_SYS_FOREIGN_COLS' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_SYS_FOREIGN' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_SYS_FIELDS' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_SYS_COLUMNS' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_SYS_INDEXES' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_SYS_TABLESTATS' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_SYS_TABLES' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_FT_INDEX_TABLE' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_FT_INDEX_CACHE' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_FT_CONFIG' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_FT_BEING_DELETED' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_FT_DELETED' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_FT_DEFAULT_STOPWORD' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_METRICS' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_BUFFER_POOL_STATS' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_BUFFER_PAGE_LRU' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_BUFFER_PAGE' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_CMP_PER_INDEX_RESET' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_CMP_PER_INDEX' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_CMPMEM_RESET' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_CMPMEM' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_CMP_RESET' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_CMP' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_LOCK_WAITS' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_LOCKS' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'INNODB_TRX' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'InnoDB' 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: FTS optimize thread exiting. 2014-05-14 14:04:53 26794 [Note] InnoDB: Starting shutdown... 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] InnoDB: Shutdown completed; log sequence number 1600637 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'ARCHIVE' 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA' 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'MyISAM' 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'CSV' 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'MRG_MYISAM' 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'MEMORY' 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'sha256_password' 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'mysql_old_password' 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'mysql_native_password' 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] Shutting down plugin 'binlog' 2014-05-14 14:04:55 26794 [Note] mysqld: Shutdown complete Because this didn't work: sudo mysql_install_db --user=mysql --basedir=/usr/ --ldata=/var/lib/mysql/ FATAL ERROR: Could not find my-default.cnf If you compiled from source, you need to run 'make install' to copy the software into the correct location ready for operation. If you are using a binary release, you must either be at the top level of the extracted archive, or pass the --basedir option pointing to that location.