поставил из source mysql. при попытке запустить bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql & запускается на несколько секунд а затем stopped. Вот log из файла .err
110226 18:30:28 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /usr/local/mysql/var
110226 18:30:29 [Note] Event Scheduler: Loaded 0 events
110226 18:30:29 [Note] /usr/local/mysql/libexec/mysqld: ready for connections.
Version: '5.1.53' socket: '/tmp/mysql.sock' port: 3306 Source distribution
110226 18:30:36 [Note] /usr/local/mysql/libexec/mysqld: Normal shutdown
110226 18:30:36 [Note] Event Scheduler: Purging the queue. 0 events
110226 18:30:36 [Note] /usr/local/mysql/libexec/mysqld: Shutdown complete
110226 18:30:36 mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /usr/local/mysql/var/linux2.pid ended