Install MySQL 5.6.xx on Ubuntu 18.04 & Ubuntu 20.04

MySql-5.6-installation guide.md

MySQL Download URL

https://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-5.6/mysql-5.6.46-linux-glibc2.12-x86_64.tar.gz

Open the terminal and follow along:

• Uninstall any existing version of MySQL

sudo rm /var/lib/mysql/ -R

• Delete the MySQL profile

sudo rm /etc/mysql/ -R

• Automatically uninstall mysql

sudo apt-get autoremove mysql* --purge
sudo apt-get remove apparmor

• Download version 5.6.46 from MySQL site

wget https://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-5.6/mysql-5.6.46-linux-glibc2.12-x86_64.tar.gz

• Add mysql user group

sudo groupadd mysql

• Add mysql (not the current user) to mysql user group

sudo useradd -g mysql mysql

• Extract it

sudo tar -xvf mysql-5.6.46-linux-glibc2.12-x86_64.tar.gz

• Move it to /usr/local

sudo mv mysql-5.6.46-linux-glibc2.12-x86_64 /usr/local/

• Create mysql folder in /usr/local by moving the untarred folder

cd /usr/local
sudo mv mysql-5.6.46-linux-glibc2.12-x86_64 mysql

• set MySql directory owner and user group

cd mysql
sudo chown -R mysql:mysql *

• Install the required lib package

sudo apt-get install libaio1 libncurses5

• Execute mysql installation script

sudo scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql

• Set mysql directory owner from outside the mysql directory

sudo chown -R root .

• Set data directory owner from inside mysql directory

sudo chown -R mysql data

• Copy the mysql configuration file

sudo cp support-files/my-default.cnf /etc/my.cnf

• Start mysql

sudo bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &
sudo cp support-files/mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysql.server

• Set root user password

sudo bin/mysqladmin -u root password '[your new password]'

• Add mysql path to the system

sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql /usr/local/bin/mysql

• Reboot!

• Start mysql server

sudo /etc/init.d/mysql.server start

• Stop mysql server

sudo /etc/init.d/mysql.server stop

• Check status of mysql

sudo /etc/init.d/mysql.server status

• Enable myql on startup

sudo update-rc.d -f mysql.server defaults

*Disable mysql on startup (Optional)

sudo update-rc.d -f mysql.server remove

• REBOOT!

• Now login using below command, start mysql server if it's not running already

mysql -u root -p

This was bleeping great. Thank-you!

Muchas gracias, muy util

Tried it on Ubuntu 24.04 - it worked. THANK YOU!

Had to create symlink for the following as Ubuntu 24 renamed those packages.

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libaio.so.1t64 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libaio.so.1

sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.6 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5

sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncurses.so.6 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncurses.so.5