Building Mysql 5.5 from source

following are the steps I used to build from source and install mysql 5.5 on my debian system

download the Mysql 5.5 tarball from mysql.com . become the root user and move the downloaded tarball to /usr/local/src. unpack the mysql tarball with:

tar -xvzf mysql-5.5.xx.tar.gz

add specific user and group to run mysql as:

groupadd mysql

useradd -r -g mysql mysql 

change directory to be inside source tree
cd /usr/local/src/mysql-5.5.xx

execute make commands
cmake .
make
make install

change to install directory
cd /usr/local/mysql

execute post installation setup commands
chown -R mysql .
chgrp -R mysql .
scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
chown -R root .
chwon -R mysql data
cp support-files/my-medium.cnf /etc/my.cnf
bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &
cp support-files/mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysql.server

login to mysql command line client and set passwords
mysql -u root -p
enter root password when prompted

display existing users

SELECT User, Host, Password FROM mysql.user;

assign password to the root user

UPDATE mysql.user SET Password = PASSWORD('newpassword') 

    WHERE User = 'root';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

assign password to the anonymous user

UPDATE mysql.user SET Password = PASSWORD('newpassword')  

    WHERE User = '';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

display existing users to verify passwords have been set

SELECT User, Host, Password FROM mysql.user;

exit mysql command line client
quit

add non-root user to mysql group
usermod -a -G mysql myUsername

add symlink to access mysql and mysqladmin
ln -s /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql /usr/bin/mysql
ln -s /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladming /usr/bin/mysqladmin



info taken from:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/installing-source-distribution.html